Episode summary
OpenAI’s Revenue Run Rate Tops $40 Billion Ahead of IPO | Bloomberg Intelligence
Bloomberg Intelligence
· · 22 min · Hosts: Paul Sweeney, Scarlet Fu · Guests: Matthew Bloxham, Anurag Rana, Gautam Mukunda, Anna Edney
Summary
OpenAI’s annualized revenue is now reported to be above $40 billion, a pace that suggests the company has materially improved momentum ahead of a potential IPO. The analyst said that still leaves OpenAI behind Anthropic on revenue, but the faster growth points to traction in enterprise products like Codex and ChatGPT Works, plus some early advertising and subscription gains. The broader read-through is that large corporate customers are already using multiple AI models in parallel, so the market may evolve into a few dominant providers rather than a single winner.
On software, the analyst argued that a potential Workday buyout would reinforce the idea that valuations for mission-critical enterprise vendors have fallen too far on AI fears. He said SAP, Workday, Shopify and ServiceNow remain hard for large language models to displace because they sit inside essential workflows, and that private-equity interest could help reset sentiment across the sector.
The conversation then turned to politics and business influence. A guest argued that corporate donations to the White House ballroom and similar efforts look like influence buying, and that companies face real long-term backlash if they appear to be trading money for regulatory favor. The guest said voters dislike perceived corruption even when the economy looks strong, and warned that future administrations could investigate and expose such arrangements.
Key takeaways
- The analyst said OpenAI’s annualized revenue above $40 billion shows stronger enterprise traction ahead of its IPO story.
- The analyst said Anthropic still appears ahead on revenue, but the AI market is becoming a multi-model enterprise race.
- Anurag Rana said a Workday takeout would signal that AI fears have pushed mission-critical software valuations too low.
- Rana said SAP, Workday, Shopify and ServiceNow remain difficult for large language models to disrupt because of their enterprise workflows.
- The guest said companies that buy influence from the administration risk future investigations and reputational damage.
- The guest said voters connect perceived corruption with who benefits from economic growth, even when headline numbers are strong.
Notable quotes
“Open AI, one of the lead players there, reported recently by by Bloomberg News is on track to generate annualized revenue of more than $40 billion”
“there's still a gap for open AI to close but I think the momentum is probably better than people had maybe worried”
“many companies are parallel running uh Gemini, Chat, GPT, Claude”
“if private equity wants to spend billions of dollars taking them private, then maybe there is value for a lot of these firms out there”
“the idea of the president saying, "Hey, I have this personal project that's sort of borderline legal and you guys are just going to write the check for it”
How the episode opens
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Let's get back to uh look taking a look at the tech space. A lot of news out here every single day. It seems like the fortunately we have a lot of smart people we can talk to that can explain all this stuff to us and put it in context.
One of them is Matthew Bloxom. He's the senior media and tech analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. He's based uh in London.
Uh Matthew, I want to start in the AI space. Why not? Because that's where we always seem to start.
Open AI, one of the lead players there, reported recently by by Bloomberg News is on track to generate annualized revenue of more than $40 billion based on its current performance. that is roughly double its run rate from the end of 2025. These growth rates are just extraordinary here.
Um what does it tell you about OpenAI in this competitive market?
Yeah. Well, it tells you that they're still um arguably lagging their biggest rival in Anthropic because I think we heard back in May that Anthropic was doing closer to 50 billion. I think it was about 47 billion. you and we saw some reports yesterday in the Financial Times that by the end of this year Anthropics thinking it's going to get to maybe a hundred to$120 billion dollars of annualized revenue.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- openai revenue run rate
- ai subscription and advertising
- workday buyout
- pet anti-aging treatments
- enterprise software valuations
Companies and tickers mentioned
- WDAY
- ELAN
- OpenAI
- Workday
- Elanco Animal Health Inc.
- Loyal Animal Health Inc.
Watch the episode
Watch “OpenAI’s Revenue Run Rate Tops $40 Billion Ahead of IPO | Bloomberg Intelligence” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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