OpenAI’s annualized revenue surged past $20 billion in 2025, marking extraordinary growth that underscores booming demand for AI — and the immense financial strain required to sustain it.
OpenAI Posts Historic Revenue Growth In 2025
On Sunday, OpenAI said that its annualized revenue run rate exceeded $20 billion in 2025, a 233% increase from 2024, accelerating sharply from the prior year’s growth when revenue rose from $2 billion in 2023 to $6 billion in 2024.
“This is never-before-seen growth at such scale,” CFO Sarah Friar said in a blog post.
“We firmly believe that more compute in these periods would have led to faster customer adoption and monetization.”
Revenue Closely Tracks Explosive Compute Expansion
The company acknowledged that revenue growth has moved almost in lockstep with its expansion in computing power, highlighting the infrastructure-heavy nature of generative AI.
OpenAI said it increased compute capacity from 0.2 gigawatts in 2023 to 0.6 gigawatts in 2024, reaching roughly 1.9 gigawatts in 2025 — nearly a tenfold increase in two years.
Revenue followed a similar trajectory, climbing from $2 billion to more than $20 billion over the same period.
“Compute grew 3X year over year or 9.5X from 2023 to 2025,” the company said, adding, “While revenue followed the same curve growing 3X year over year, or 10X from 2023 to 2025.”
Massive Infrastructure Comes With Enormous Costs
The company is reportedly burning more than $17 billion annually, and revenue from subscriptions alone may fall short of supporting its highly compute-intensive AI operations.
In December, it was reported that OpenAI was seeking to raise $100 billion at a valuation of $830 billion, largely to fund further compute expansion.
Around the same time, SoftBank Group (OTC:SFTBF) (OTC:SFTBY) was reported to have completed a $40 billion investment.
Ads Mark A Shift In Monetization Strategy
Facing mounting costs, OpenAI on Friday announced plans to test advertisements in ChatGPT’s Free and Go tiers, while keeping paid plans ad-free.
The company said ads will be clearly labeled, separate from AI responses and will not use conversation data for targeting.
Although CEO Sam Altman has previously described ads as a “last resort,” the move reflects growing pressure to monetize a vast base of nonpaying users.
As of mid-2025, reportedly only about 35 million users, roughly 5% of weekly active users, subscribed to paid plans.
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
Image via Imagn Images
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