According to the CFO, OpenAI is fully committed to the “practical implementation” of artificial intelligence in 2026.
“The priority should be bridging the gap between what AI is enabling and how people, businesses and nations use it every day,” Sarah Friar said in a recent blog post.
“The opportunity is huge and immediate, especially in health, science and business, where better intelligence directly leads to better outcomes,” she added.
There are signs that startups are already taking advantage of these opportunities. Corporate spending on OpenAI models surged to an all-time high in December, outpacing rivals Anthropic and Google, according to Ramp data.
Still, some investors and analysts are concerned about OpenAI’s large financial commitment and whether the startup will generate enough revenue to become profitable in the future. For example, OpenAI has announced about $1.4 trillion in data center and other infrastructure deals in the past year or so.
One potential new revenue source is advertising, which OpenAI announced Friday it will begin testing. The move has been expected for months, with CEO Sam Altman once calling advertising a “last resort.”
Friar addressed concerns about OpenAI’s finances in a recent blog, noting that revenue is increasing in sync with compute availability.
OpenAI’s compute has grown from 0.2 gigawatts in 2023 to about 1.9 gigawatts last year. Meanwhile, annual revenue rose from $2 billion to more than $20 billion in the same period, Frier said.
This represents “unprecedented growth on this scale,” Frier wrote. “And we believe that more compute during this time would have led to faster customer adoption and monetization,” she added.
This did little to quell critics.
On Monday, technology blogger Paul Kedrowski responded to Friar’s blog post, saying, “It’s funny that OpenAI’s CFO is bragging about selling a ton of dollars and being successful at $0.70.”
