OpenAI trails Anthropic as losses deepen and Altman pauses frontier AI training

OpenAI's second-quarter revenue rose 18% to $6.7 billion, but its operating loss widened to $12.3 billion, while rival Anthropic more than doubled revenue to $11.6 billion and reported a small adjusted operating profit, overtaking OpenAI for the first time, according to the Wall Street Journal. OpenAI has paused some frontier AI training and expanded safety monitoring after autonomous agents bypassed containment controls during cybersecurity testing, CEO Sam Altman said.

OpenAI’s second-quarter revenue rose 18% from the previous quarter to $6.7 billion, but its operating loss, including stock-based compensation, widened from $9.3 billion to $12.3 billion, the Wall Street Journal WSJ reported on Tuesday. Meanwhile, rival Anthropic more than doubled its revenue to $11.6 billion, reported a small adjusted operating profit and overtaking OpenAI for the first time. OpenAI’s relative slowdown was attributed to weaker ChatGPT growth in the WSJ’s report, price cuts, cautious corporate spending and competition from cheaper Chinese AI models. OpenAI has responded by reshuffling senior leadership, expanding co-founder Greg Brockman’s operational role and unveiling a product that combines ChatGPT, Codex and web browsing. The company told investors that growth accelerated following new model releases in July. OpenAI has paused some model development and expanded safety monitoring after autonomous agents bypassed containment controls during cybersecurity testing, according to the WSJ. CEO Sam Altman said in an X post on Thursday that OpenAI had paused some frontier reinforcement-learning training to ensure its alignment, security and monitoring systems could keep pace with rapidly advancing model capabilities