OpenAI Reportedly Just Gave Investors Bad News on Eventual Profitability

OpenAI told investors its revenue grew just 18% from the first to second quarter of 2026, reaching $6.7 billion in the quarter ending June, compared with $5.7 billion the prior quarter, according to an anonymously sourced Wall Street Journal report. The tepid growth disappointed some shareholders who had hoped OpenAI would catch up to rival Anthropic, which reported a 130% revenue surge and its first profitable quarter. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told Time that slowing down model development is appropriate, saying, "Getting AI safety right is more important than any company's momentum.

Last week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman apparently told Time’s Alex Heath, “I think it’s a good time to slow down.” That story https://time.com/article/2026/08/18/openai-slowing-training/ , published Tuesday, was about OpenAI slowing down model development in light of recent safety headaches, such as its agents apparently taking a turn for the rebellious https://gizmodo.com/hugging-face-said-last-week-it-was-attacked-an-unreleased-openai-model-did-it-openai-now-says-2000788761 during safety evaluations. But OpenAI’s journey to profitability may also be slowing down, according to an anonymously sourced Wall Street Journal story https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openais-second-quarter-sales-show-tepid-growth-compared-with-anthropic-5cb42998 published Tuesday. The Journal’s elusive “people familiar with the matter” said OpenAI told investors revenue had grown by just 18% when comparing the first and second quarters of this year. Revenue was $6.7 billion in the quarter ending in June, compared to $5.7 billion the quarter before. Gizmodo requested a statement from OpenAI about the Wall Street Journal’s claim, but did not hear back. The Wall Street Journal’s story contains the claim that OpenAI’s revenue news “disappointed some shareholders who had hoped the startup would show more progress catching up to rival Anthropic.” Anthropic is the gallant to OpenAI’s revenue-generating Goofus, if the anonymous OpenAI sources who spoke to the Journal are to be believed. Anthropic just reported a 130% revenue surge, and a profitable quarter https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/mind-blowing-growth-is-about-to-propel-anthropic-into-its-first-profitable-quarter-7edbf2f4 —though take that with a grain of salt given Anthropic’s weird recent history of dealmaking https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/06/anthropic-spacex-data-center-capacity.html . But OpenAI also reportedly claimed to its investors that growth accelerated after the GPT-5.6 family of models launched publicly last month https://openai.com/index/gpt-5-6/ . Later that same month, OpenAI introduced price cuts https://openai.com/index/advancing-the-price-performance-frontier-with-gpt-5-6/ for its Luna and Terra models, including a steep 80% cut for Terra. But the Journal says Anthropic is already in the final preparations for its IPO, which credible rumors claim we should expect next month https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anthropic-tries-to-shore-up-investor-confidence-ahead-of-blockbuster-ipo-0ff736ad . OpenAI’s IPO, meanwhile, is widely https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/25/technology/openai-ipo-artificial-intelligence.html expected https://www.ft.com/content/53082739-7714-4aae-9816-e55ab423cbee?syn-25a6b1a6=1 to be delayed until next year. For what it’s worth, Bloomberg reported last week https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-13/openai-s-revenue-run-rate-tops-40-billion-ahead-of-ipo that OpenAI is expected to generate about $40 billion in total this year, which would see it doubling its revenue year-over-year. Anthropic’s annualized revenue projection, meanwhile, has shot up to $65 billion this year https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/17/anthropics-annualized-revenue-surges-to-65b/ , and the total could skyrocket even more to $100 or even $120 billion for the year, https://www.ft.com/content/840ac156-af1c-4a82-b260-ae791072fcfa?syn-25a6b1a6=1 according to the Financial Times. $120 billion in revenue would likely mean more revenue than Target https://companiesmarketcap.com/largest-companies-by-revenue/ . If you’re an OpenAI investor, this might all suck. But if we take all this recent news about AI models hacking companies and escaping containment https://gizmodo.com/i-usually-laugh-off-these-ai-hacking-reports-but-this-one-sounds-serious-and-scary-2000794666 seriously, OpenAI’s overall slowdown probably isn’t a bad thing for humanity. “Getting AI safety right,” Altman told Time, “is more important than any company’s momentum.”