#OpenAIAnnualRevenueSurpasses40B My view is this: Yes, a high growth rate can justify a very high IPO valuation; however, a valuation exceeding $1 trillion requires investors to believe that the current $40 billion annual revenue run rate represents the start of a sustained revenue growth trajectory, rather than the peak of an AI spending cycle.
The headline is truly impressive. Reports indicate that OpenAI’s annualized revenue has surpassed the $40 billion mark—roughly doubling its level from late 2025—driven by momentum in coding, enterprise AI agents, and advertising.
The valuation math presents some striking figures:
OpenAI’s March 2026 investment round valued the company at $852 billion (post-money).
Based on the $40 billion annual revenue run rate:
$852 billion valuation / $40 billion revenue = ~21x (price-to-sales ratio)
$1 trillion valuation / $40 billion = 25x
$1.5 trillion / $40 billion = 37.5x
$2 trillion / $40 billion = 50x
These are extraordinary multiples for a company that is still spending heavily on computing power and infrastructure.
However, there is an important nuance here: The market isn't necessarily valuing OpenAI based on its current $40 billion revenue; it is evaluating the company based on the revenue potential it could reach between 2027 and 2030.
We see exactly this scenario with Anthropic as well. Investors are taking into account projections that Anthropic could reach $190–200 billion in revenue by 2028, even though its current annualized revenue run rate stands at approximately $47 billion. Anthropic's most recent private funding round valued the company at $965 billion.
Consequently, the valuation race is increasingly shifting away from traditional Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) multiples and turning into a bet on the future AI economy.
Why am I optimistic about OpenAI's revenue growth trajectory?
1. Coding and AI agents represent a market that is potentially far larger than that of chatbot subscriptions.
This is the most significant development. If companies begin paying OpenAI not just for "AI assistants" but for "agents" that actually perform tasks—such as software engineering, research, customer service, and analysis—then revenues could scale based on the volume of economic work performed rather than just the number of users (seats/licenses). OpenAI itself noted earlier in the year that enterprise users accounted for over 40% of its revenue and were on track to match consumer revenue by year-end.
This makes for a far more compelling IPO narrative than the simple story of "ChatGPT has a massive user base."
2. Advertising offers OpenAI yet another enormous revenue stream.
OpenAI reported that its advertising pilot generated over $100 million in annualized revenue in less than six weeks earlier this year.
While small compared to the $40 billion figure, this is strategically significant. If ChatGPT evolves into a major discovery and search interface, advertising could eventually become a multi-billion-dollar business.
3. The distribution advantage is immense.
OpenAI’s distribution flows from consumers to developers, then to businesses, and finally to agents.
This cycle is likely what investors are paying for.
But there's a huge problem
Revenue growth isn't the same thing as economic profit.
Frontier AI is extraordinarily capital intensive. OpenAI itself has emphasized that compute is a strategic constraint, while hyperscaler AI infrastructure spending has exploded.
So I'd watch four numbers much more closely than the $40B headline:
Revenue growth + gross margin + inference cost per unit of intelligence + free cash flow
If revenue goes:
$40B → $70B → $110B
but compute costs rise almost proportionally, the IPO could disappoint.
If revenue goes:
$40B → $70B → $120B
while inference costs collapse and gross margins expand, then a $1T valuation could eventually look surprisingly reasonable.
And Anthropic makes this much more interesting
The competitive situation is arguably the biggest IPO risk.
Anthropic is already reporting a roughly $47B annualized run rate, ahead of OpenAI's $40B, and it has been gaining traction particularly in enterprise.
That means investors aren't going to ask:
"Is OpenAI growing?"
They're going to ask:
"Is OpenAI growing faster and more profitably than Anthropic, Google, Meta, xAI and the open-model ecosystem?"
That's a much harder question.
My valuation framework
I'd roughly think about it this way:
Scenario Future revenue Plausible valuation logic
Bear $60–80B $600–900B
Base $100–130B $1.2–1.6T
Bull $150–200B+ $1.8–2.5T+
My base case would be ~$1.2–1.6T if OpenAI enters the public market with $40B+ run-rate revenue and demonstrates continued acceleration.
I would not automatically call $2T irrational—but at that level the IPO becomes a bet that AI agents fundamentally reshape the economics of knowledge work. You're paying today for several years of extraordinary future growth.
The key signal I'd watch
Ironically, Anthropic going public first could help OpenAI rather than hurt it.
If Anthropic successfully lists at something approaching $1.5–2T and trades well, it establishes a public-market valuation framework for frontier AI.
Then OpenAI can effectively say:
"We're at $40B+ revenue, we're growing rapidly, we have the largest consumer distribution, and here's our enterprise/agent opportunity."
If Anthropic's IPO instead gets hammered because investors discover that $100B+ revenue projections don't translate into attractive free cash flow, OpenAI's valuation case gets much harder.
So my bottom line:
$40B revenue makes a $1T OpenAI IPO defensible. It does not, by itself, justify $2T.
For $2T, I would want to see evidence that AI agents are becoming a new software/infrastructure category with rapidly improving unit economics, not simply that companies are spending more on AI during the current boom.
And that's why I think the next 12–18 months could be one of the most consequential periods in the history of the technology industry.
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