OpenAI CFO Reveals IPO Timeline: 2027, Possibly Earlier

In the midst of the PR crisis triggered by the collective departure of OpenAI executives, CFO Sarah Friar gave a key answer at an internal closed-door meeting: we will become a public company in 2027. This timeline is clearly later than Anthropic's—according to Friar, Anthropic may file its prospectus in the coming weeks and could go public as early as September this year, earlier than the rumored October.

Facing the lag, Friar's reassurance was: an IPO is not the finish line but a milestone, essentially just another round of funding. Even if Anthropic goes public first, there's no need to worry; OpenAI just needs to run its own race. She added that if business growth is fast enough, an earlier IPO is not ruled out. But this patch appears pale in the eyes of employees, because only by truly entering the public market can employees' shares gain clearer pricing and smoother exit channels.

To explain the $852 billion valuation, Friar presented key slides at the meeting: overall revenue grew 35% quarter-over-quarter, enterprise revenue grew 50% quarter-over-quarter, and weekly active users of AI programming and office products reached 20 million. According to internal materials from July, OpenAI's annualized revenue grew 20% from June, with enterprise customer contributions growing faster at 32% quarter-over-quarter, bringing the latest annualized revenue to approximately $40 billion.

What excites OpenAI even more is that enterprise business revenue has already surpassed consumer business, ahead of the company's original target of end-2026. Although ChatGPT has over 900 million weekly active users, about 95% are non-paying. Enterprise customers have higher average order values and more stable payments, making it easier to support a long-term growth story. The acceleration in July was driven by three products: the GPT-5.6 series models, the enterprise-grade agent product ChatGPT Work, and the AI coding tool Codex.

Despite strong growth, OpenAI's Q2 financial weaknesses were fully exposed: revenue was $6.7 billion, up 18% from Q1's $5.7 billion, but operating losses including stock-based compensation widened to $12.3 billion, nearly double its revenue. In the same period, Anthropic's quarterly revenue reached $11.5 billion, doubling, and it achieved positive adjusted operating profit for the first time.

OpenAI board chairman Bret Taylor previously admitted that the company was once in a catch-up state in the AI programming market, but some heavy users of Claude Code began looking for alternatives after receiving high bills, which gave Codex an opportunity. However, in terms of overall volume, OpenAI still has a distance to cover in catching up with Anthropic.

Anthropic is not without its own challenges. Data tracking platform TickerTrends reported that its ARR growth trend has begun to slow: Claude Code's month-over-month growth rate slid from highs to 5.2%, while Codex's growth rate remained at 20.8% during the same period. The absolute gap between the two has narrowed sharply—from $8.38 billion on July 6 to $6.3 billion by August 10, erasing nearly $2.1 billion in lead in one month.

A post by a netizen claiming 'Claude is experiencing mass cancellations' attracted millions of views, with complaints including invisible watermarks, stingy quotas, and model downgrades. In the long run, as Friar said, it's still uncertain who will win.