OpenAI’s annualized revenue reportedly trails earlier estimate by $20 billion

OpenAI has told investors that its annualized revenue was approaching $50 billion at the end of September, the Financial Times reports—about $20 billion below the $70 billion figure widely circulated last month. The apparent gap is less a sudden drop in sales than a lesson in how slippery “run rate” comparisons can be: it projects a recent pace of revenue over a full year rather than reporting revenue already earned. According to the FT, investors had adjusted OpenAI’s figure to make it resemble rival Anthropic’s, which counts some sales through cloud partners differently. OpenAI is still growing at an extraordinary scale, but the episode makes clear that headline revenue numbers from private AI companies can reflect accounting choices as much as underlying demand.