OpenAI says its ad business has already hit $1B in annualized revenue

OpenAI Group PBC today sought to justify its controversial decision to start running ads in ChatGPT several months ago, saying its new advertising business has now crossed the $1 billion annualized revenue run rate mark.

In a blog post, OpenAI said the milestone underlines its success in creating a “diversified business model” that gives people more choice about how to access its products, alongside its consumer subscriptions, enterprise offerings and its application programming interfaces.

The announcement comes at a time when OpenAI is facing increased pressure to justify an $852 billion valuation ahead of what’s expected to be a massive initial public offering that could launch later this year. But the new ad business, which launched around 200 days ago, is still responsible for only a small part of the company’s total revenue.

Last month, it was reported that the company generated $6.7 billion in second quarter sales, up 18% from the first quarter. Those numbers were viewed as disappointing, as just a day earlier OpenAI’s rival Anthropic PBC reported that its own revenue had grown more than 50%, to $11.6 billion, over the same period, also posting a small profit. OpenAI, in contrast, saw its operating loss grow to $12.3 billion.