OpenAI annualized revenue in July topped second quarter, CFO told staff

OpenAI annualized revenue accelerated in July, with finance chief Sarah Friar telling employees that annualized recurring revenue for the month was higher than the figure for the entire second quarter, CNBC reported. The update came during an internal meeting Wednesday with Friar and board chair Bret Taylor as OpenAI faces rising competition and scrutiny over its reported $852 billion valuation.

CNBC said it reviewed a partial transcript of the meeting. Friar told staff that the second quarter itself had been strong, according to the transcript, and she and Taylor pointed to several drivers: the GPT-5.6 series of models, ChatGPT Work, the company’s enterprise agent, and broader use of Codex, its AI coding tool.

What did OpenAI say about annualized revenue?

Annualized recurring revenue measures the yearly run rate of repeatable revenue based on a shorter period, rather than revenue actually collected over a full year. CNBC reported that Friar said OpenAI’s July annualized recurring revenue exceeded its second-quarter level, but the company did not disclose a specific dollar amount in the meeting details reported.

The Information reported in March that OpenAI had recently surpassed $25 billion in annualized revenue, citing a person familiar with the matter. CNBC also reported that OpenAI is preparing for a potentially large initial public offering, after the company confidentially filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June.

The revenue message to employees comes as OpenAI tries to expand among business customers and developers while funding a capital-intensive buildout of AI infrastructure. CNBC reported in February that OpenAI told investors it was targeting roughly $600 billion in total compute spending by 2030.

CNBC reported earlier this week that OpenAI is in discussions with Nvidia for a backstop of as much as $250 billion. The proposed arrangement would help support plans to lease a large AI data center in Ohio, according to that report.

Competition in the AI market has sharpened. CNBC reported that OpenAI is contending with Anthropic, Google and lower-cost open-weight models from China. Moonshot AI this month introduced Kimi K3, which the company says narrows the gap with leading U.S. models and beats OpenAI and Anthropic’s strongest systems on some benchmarks.

Anthropic has also posted rapid growth. The company said in May that its revenue run rate had topped $47 billion, compared with roughly $10 billion in revenue generated for all of 2025, with Claude Code gaining traction among developers.

Taylor acknowledged in the employee meeting that Anthropic had a strong start to the year and that OpenAI had ground to make up in coding, CNBC reported. He said he was encouraged by Codex’s growth, and told staff that some users who had adopted Claude Code faced large bills and began seeking alternatives.

Both OpenAI and Anthropic confidentially filed for IPOs with the SEC in June, according to CNBC. Neither company has disclosed timing or other details for a public listing.

This story draws on original reporting from CNBC.