OpenAI’s CFO Sarah Friar informed investors on August 14, 2026, that corporate clients are generating more revenue than private users of ChatGPT for the first time. The shift comes about two quarters earlier than planned at the beginning of the year. OpenAI’s annualized revenue rate is now around forty billion dollars.
Business customers are growing significantly faster than private subscriptions
Friar spoke at a meeting with investors about the shift in the revenue mix. According to CNBC, citing an attendee and presentation slides, the ratio at the beginning of the year was still sixty to forty in favor of private customers. Since then, the business customer segment has developed faster than expected, leading to the lines crossing. Originally, OpenAI had projected a tie only by the end of 2026, so the shift came about two quarters earlier than planned.
For July 2026, Friar reported revenue growth of twenty percent compared to the previous month, with the business customer segment increasing by 32 percent during the same period. Companies are increasingly aligning their AI spending with the metric of cost per unit of work done rather than the pure token price, according to Friar – a shift away from maximizing consumption towards demonstrable benefits. Already in July, the CFO had introduced an evaluation framework for companies with four questions about the value of AI investments, which specifically targets this efficiency mindset.
Advertising business, user numbers, and a change at the top of sales
In addition to the business customer segment, the report mentions another pillar: OpenAI’s advertising revenue is approaching one billion dollars in annual revenue after the business launched in February 2026. At the time of the announcement, OpenAI reported having more than one billion weekly users and over two million companies as customers. The annualized revenue rate of forty billion dollars thus corresponds to roughly a doubling compared to the same period last year – this figure is independently unverified, as it comes from internally presented investor slides rather than an audited financial report.
The pattern fits a broader trend among large AI providers to focus their offerings more on paying corporate clients rather than free or low-cost private subscriptions. Competitors like Anthropic have recently reported similar shifts towards corporate revenues. The investor announcement also coincided with a week of personnel changes in the leadership team: Sales chief Denise Dresser reportedly submitted her resignation on August 13, 2026, with Dali Rajic taking over her position. At the same time, OpenAI President Brad Lightcap also left the company. OpenAI has not yet publicly commented on the reasons for the changes or any possible connection to the revenue shift.
It remains to be seen whether OpenAI will publish the figures from the investor meeting in an official, audited form at a later date – as a private company, it is not obligated to do so. It will also be crucial to see how the stronger focus on business customers affects the further development of the free and low-cost ChatGPT offerings for private users.
