OpenAI's annual recurring revenue — a projection of a recent period's sales extended across a full year — is approaching $70 billion, driven by business customers signing on at roughly twice the pace recorded in July, as the company works to close its enterprise revenue gap with Anthropic while both labs prepare for potential public listings.

Is OpenAI outpacing Anthropic?

Citing anonymous sources, Axios reported that OpenAI's annualized revenue run rate has climbed more than 70% since the third quarter began, landing just short of $70 billion. Business-to-business revenue grew even faster, more than doubling over the same period. On the consumer side, the ChatGPT maker booked more new revenue in the third quarter alone than it generated across all of 2025. At that scale, OpenAI's overall run rate would sit just above the roughly $65 billion Anthropic reported reaching in July, though the two figures cover different measurement dates.

The momentum marks a sharp reversal from OpenAI's position in late summer. As of August 18, the company's revenue had risen just 18% between the first and second quarters, from $5.7 billion to $6.7 billion for the three months ending in June. Anthropic, over the same window, said its revenue more than doubled from $4.73 billion to $11.6 billion and logged an adjusted operating profit of $559 million.

That revenue gap was followed by a run of bad headlines and executive departures, including the exit of Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser after less than a year in the role. At the time, Holger Mueller of Constellation Research described Anthropic's early bet on enterprise customers as "a smart move because the enterprise is always the ultimate prize." Six weeks later, it is OpenAI's own enterprise line that is growing fastest.

Anthropic's revenue grew twelvefold to nearly $4.6 billion in 2025, according to an IPO prospectus reviewed by Reuters. The company also reached an annualized run rate of about $65 billion in July. The same prospectus disclosed $518 billion in future cloud, computing, and infrastructure obligations, and warned investors that the company's technology could pose an "existential risk" to humanity.

What is OpenAI spending to build its products?

OpenAI's revenue growth tells only half the story. The company has yet to officially disclose its spending, but its operating loss reportedly widened to $12.3 billion in the second quarter, up from $9.3 billion in the first — a reported quarterly loss that exceeds the $6.7 billion in second-quarter revenue reported as of August 18.

Pricing pressure is also mounting. Cryptopolitan reported on September 22 that OpenAI cut its GPT-6 Sol and Luna API prices to at least 50% below those of their predecessors, with Anthropic trimming Opus 5.5 pricing the same day. The acceleration is coming even as both labs cut prices, leaving profitability and per-unit economics to whatever their listing documents disclose.

Both companies are moving toward public listings. Anthropic filed confidentially earlier this year and has been linked to a valuation nearing $2 trillion, while OpenAI has started work toward an IPO filing. Cryptopolitan recently reported that OpenAI held early talks over a funding round valuing it at roughly $1.2 trillion, up from the $852 billion valuation in its March round. CEO Sam Altman, however, has ruled out a 2026 listing on AI-safety grounds. Because the latest revenue figures rest on anonymous sourcing, the companies' eventual public filings would put these numbers on the official record for the first time.