OpenAI 'will be a public company in 2027' or sooner, CFO Friar tells employees

OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told employees at an all-hands meeting on Wednesday that the lab "will be a public company in 2027," and could debut sooner if "our business continues to inflect," according to CNBC, citing two people familiar with her comments. She described the listing as "not a finish line, it is a milestone, another fundraise," and pointed to the $122 billion raised in March as a source of flexibility.

At a glance

• OpenAI filed its IPO prospectus confidentially with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June and has not disclosed a target date; Anthropic has filed confidentially as well, according to CNBC.
• OpenAI told investors it generated $6.7 billion in revenue in the second quarter, up 18% from the first, according to a Wall Street Journal report; its annualized run rate recently topped $40 billion.
• The pitch lands after a run of senior departures, with revenue chief Denise Dresser leaving after eight months and Brad Lightcap ending an eight-year stint two days earlier.

A 2027 listing gives OpenAI over a year to show public-market investors that an $852 billion private valuation rests on something more than run-rate growth, and Friar's framing of the IPO as another fundraise reads as an attempt to lower the symbolic weight of the event for employees. The comparison with Anthropic matters for a different reason: whoever lists first sets the disclosure template the other will be measured against.

Slides at the all-hands put OpenAI's revenue run rate up 35% quarter to date

Friar showed employees a series of slides during the meeting. They put OpenAI's revenue run rate up 35% quarter to date, its enterprise revenue run rate up 50% quarter to date, and its AI coding and work product at 20 million weekly active users.

The figures land against an $852 billion valuation that OpenAI is under pressure to justify before the listing, with investors seeking a more detailed view of its finances. OpenAI told investors it generated $6.7 billion in revenue for the second quarter, up 18% from the first, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

OpenAI filed its IPO prospectus confidentially with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June. A confidential filing lets a company work through the regulator's review before its financial statements become public, and OpenAI has not disclosed publicly when it plans to debut.

Friar said Anthropic could go public in September and OpenAI is running its own race

Friar told employees not to worry if Anthropic reaches the public market first. Anthropic is also under confidential file, and there is a chance it removes the cover in the coming weeks and becomes public in September, she said, adding that OpenAI is running its own race.

Anthropic told investors over the weekend that its annualized revenue run rate hit $65 billion at the end of July, a sevenfold increase from a year earlier, CNBC reported. The lab also shared a preliminary revenue figure of $11.5 billion for the second quarter and has been holding early meetings to test the waters with potential investors.

Three senior executives have left OpenAI since July

Friar's comments follow a wave of executive turnover. Revenue chief Denise Dresser left after eight months at OpenAI last week, two days after Brad Lightcap said he was ending an eight-year stint at the company to start something new, and product business chief Fidji Simo stepped down in July to focus on recovery from chronic illness.

The turnover has left Friar, CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman to project stability with backers already worried about competition, the growing adoption of lower-cost open-weight models, and SpaceX's volatile stock price in its first two months on the market.

Brockman played down the departures in an interview with CNBC on Monday, saying the turnover is not "actually that atypical." He said the difference between OpenAI and other organizations is that "we are so much in the spotlight, so every departure gets scrutinized in a way that it doesn't otherwise."

The date OpenAI has not given

OpenAI has not publicly disclosed a target date for its market debut, and Friar's 2027 framing is the closest thing to a timetable so far, conditioned on the pace of the business. Her remarks, as reported, did not include a target size, a price range or a venue for the offering, and the confidential prospectus filed in June remains out of public view.