OpenAI has $20 billion in annual recurring revenue, but perhaps the bigger news is that the company's 2026 focus revolves around "practical adoption" in health, science and enterprise.
Sarah Friar, OpenAI's CFO, said in a blog post outlining a bit of the company's financial picture and infrastructure commitments.
"Our focus for 2026: practical adoption. The priority is closing the gap between what AI now makes possible and how people, companies, and countries are using it day to day. The opportunity is large and immediate, especially in health, science, and enterprise, where better intelligence translates directly into better outcomes."
Friar's missive is worth noting for the enterprise, which primarily sees Anthropic as the practical enterprise AI adoption play. Perhaps, there's a larger takeaway for software as a service vendors. The theory on Wall Street is that SaaS will be disrupted by AI agents and some of these vendors won't make the cut. For now, investors are voting with their dollars as enterprise software stocks are taking a hit early in 2026.
OpenAI can become "an operating layer for knowledge work," said Friar.
This disruption will take time to play out, but it's clear OpenAI sees itself as a leader going forward with a focus on AI agents and workflow automation to manage projects, coordinate plans and execute tasks.
Friar said AI's biggest constraint is infrastructure and OpenAI isn't shy about multi-year commitments. Friar's argument is that revenue goes along with computing power. The more compute, OpenAI has the faster it will grow. OpenAI's Friar noted that there will be new business models ahead.
"The business model closes the loop. We began with subscriptions. Today we operate a multi-tier system that includes consumer and team subscriptions, a free ad- and commerce-supported tier that drives broad adoption, and usage-based APIs tied to production workloads. Where this goes next will extend beyond what we already sell. As intelligence moves into scientific research, drug discovery, energy systems, and financial modeling, new economic models will emerge. Licensing, IP-based agreements, and outcome-based pricing will share in the value created. That is how the internet evolved. Intelligence will follow the same path."
Friar makes an interesting point, but outcome- and value-based pricing usually appears to vendors. Customers? Not so much.
OpenAI's post was making the case that the company's spending on infrastructure is disciplined with capital committed in tranches against "real demand signals."
According to Friar, OpenAI's business model will catch up to infrastructure with multiple revenue streams including commerce, ads, subscriptions and APIs.
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Friar said compute grew 3X year over year from 0.2 GW in 2023 to 0.6 GW in 2024 to about 1.9 GW in 2025. Revenue in that time grew at the same clip with $2 billion in ARR in 2023, $6 billion in 2024 and more than $20 billion in 2025.
