OpenAI's adjusted net loss rate for the first quarter reached 122%, and its annualized revenue has been surpassed by competitors.

According to Beating Monitoring, OpenAI generated approximately $5.7 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2026, leading competitor Anthropic by about $1 billion. However, Anthropic’s annualized revenue has recently reached nearly $45 billion, surpassing OpenAI’s $30 billion annualized revenue. OpenAI’s first-quarter growth was mainly driven by Codex code agents, enterprise sales, and ChatGPT advertising tests. Although OpenAI is expected to meet its $30 billion revenue target for 2026, its adjusted operating profit margin in the first quarter fell to -122%, meaning it net lost $1.22 for every $1 of revenue generated (excluding large items such as equity incentives). Thanks to its performance in the first quarter, OpenAI secured $122 billion in new funding from suppliers such as Amazon and NVIDIA, while Anthropic is seeking $30 billion in funding. Both companies plan to launch their initial public offerings as early as the fourth quarter of 2026.

On the user side, ChatGPT’s average weekly active users in the first quarter were 905 million, down from the February peak of 920 million, failing to reach OpenAI’s previously set target of 1 billion users. Last year, OpenAI warned employees that Google’s integration of Gemini into search would create competitive pressure. However, since the launch of GPT 5.5 and the latest image generation models in April, ChatGPT’s user growth has accelerated again. In paid subscriptions, ChatGPT’s paid individual users reached 55 million in the first quarter, up from 47 million at the end of 2025. According to its plans, OpenAI aims to achieve $102 billion in annual revenue through the ChatGPT advertising business before 2030.