OpenAI crossed $25 billion in annualised revenue in February 2026, up from $20 billion at the end of 2025. Anthropic reached $19 billion in annualised revenue by March 2026, up from $9 billion at year-end. Both companies are preparing for public listings targeting late 2026.
OpenAI’s position
OpenAI’s $25 billion revenue milestone was reached in under 40 months – a scaling rate that has no precedent in enterprise software. Salesforce took 18 years to reach the same figure. The company has 910 million weekly active users of ChatGPT and more than 9 million paying business customers as of February 2026. Enterprise revenue now accounts for over 40% of total revenue.
The company closed a $122 billion funding round in March 2026 at a valuation of $852 billion, with Amazon, Nvidia, and SoftBank among the lead investors. Internal targets point to an IPO filing in the second half of 2026, with a target valuation approaching $1 trillion. OpenAI projects a $14 billion loss in 2026, driven by infrastructure and compute costs.
Anthropic’s trajectory
Anthropic’s revenue grew approximately tenfold year-on-year to reach $19 billion by March 2026. Around 80% of that revenue comes from enterprise customers; eight of the Fortune 10 companies are paying users. Claude Code alone generated $2.5 billion in annualised revenue as of early 2026, more than double its figure from the start of the year.
Anthropic has hired Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan to lead underwriting and is reported to be targeting an October 2026 IPO. Its most recent private valuation, set in a February 2026 Series G round, was $380 billion. Epoch AI has projected that at current growth trajectories, Anthropic could overtake OpenAI in annualised revenue by mid-2026.
A narrowing gap
The revenue gap between the two companies has compressed from a wide margin to approximately $6 billion. Anthropic is growing at roughly three times the rate of OpenAI on a proportional basis. In enterprise API market share, Anthropic has risen from 12% in 2023 to 32% by mid-2025, while OpenAI’s share fell from 50% to 25% over the same period.
Both companies face the same structural tension: revenue is growing at historic rates while losses remain substantial. The IPO filings, when they come, will be the first detailed public look at the economics of frontier AI at scale.
John Moore is the editor of fastai.news, an independent publication covering developments in artificial intelligence.
He founded fastai.news in April 2026 to apply the same rigorous, neutral reporting standards he established at Powerboat News – his international publication – to the fast-moving world of AI.
With no filler and no opinion, fastai.news reports what is happening in AI models, research, business and tools, and leaves readers to draw their own conclusions.
John is based in Buckinghamshire, England.