In a rare internal meeting, OpenAI's CFO revealed that the company's new annualized recurring revenue (ARR) for July alone exceeded the total for the entire second quarter. The growth engine is fueled by the explosive adoption of GPT-5.6, enterprise agents, and the coding tool Codex. Analysts suggest this could push this year's ARR close to $60 billion, narrowing the gap with Anthropic. At a pivotal moment when the company's valuation has reached $852 billion and its IPO filing has been secretly submitted, this accelerating revenue curve may serve as the strongest card in its roadshow.
OpenAI is ramping up its revenue curve at a staggering pace. The chief financial officer of the world's most influential AI company disclosed in an internal meeting that the company's monthly incremental annualized recurring revenue (ARR) in July alone exceeded that of the entire second quarter, signaling an acceleration in its commercialization process.
On Thursday, according to partial transcripts of the internal meeting obtained by CNBC, OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told employees at an all-hands meeting on Wednesday that the company's July ARR surpassed the entire second quarter. "And the second quarter itself was quite impressive," Friar added. Board Chairman Bret Taylor also attended the meeting.
Previously, OpenAI's revenue data released in April showed an annualized recurring revenue (ARR) of $25 billion for fiscal year 2026. Calculations suggest that the ARR for the second quarter (April-June) ranged from $25 billion to $42 billion, implying net new ARR additions of approximately $17 billion during the quarter.
Combined with the $42 billion at the end of June, OpenAI's ARR by the end of July was close to $60 billion, narrowing the gap with Anthropic. Earlier, TickerTrends tracking showed that Anthropic's ARR for 2026 was approximately $74.1 billion.
This statement comes as OpenAI faces intense competition from Anthropic and a wave of low-cost open-source models. The company is actively signaling the health of its business to employees while building valuation support for a potential massive-scale IPO.
Growth Engines: GPT-5.6, Enterprise Agents, and Codex
Friar and Taylor attributed the current growth momentum to three main drivers at the meeting: the launch of the GPT-5.6 series models, the new enterprise AI agent product ChatGPT Work, and the rapid adoption of the AI coding tool Codex.
Taylor acknowledged at the meeting that OpenAI once lagged behind Anthropic in the coding market and needed to catch up. However, he expressed encouragement about Codex's growth trajectory. "You'll see that users who deeply use Claude Code eventually face high bills and start looking for alternatives," Taylor said.
According to sources cited by The Information in March this year, OpenAI's annualized revenue had already exceeded $25 billion at that time. Since then, with the explosive growth of Codex, the revenue curve has steepened significantly.
Competitive Pressure: Anthropic's Valuation Surpasses, Gap Still Narrowing
Behind OpenAI's accelerated growth is an increasingly fierce market battle. Anthropic surpassed OpenAI in valuation earlier this year and announced in May that its revenue run rate had exceeded $47 billion—while the company's full-year revenue for 2025 was approximately $10 billion. Anthropic's Claude Code tool quickly gained popularity among developers and is considered the core driver of its revenue surge.
Meanwhile, open-source models from China continue to exert pressure. Earlier this month, China's Moonshot AI released Kimi K3, claiming it surpassed OpenAI and Anthropic's flagship systems on some benchmarks and is available at a lower cost.
Taylor acknowledged at the meeting that Anthropic had a strong start to the year but emphasized that OpenAI is reclaiming the initiative.
IPO Prospects: $852 Billion Valuation Awaits Market Test
OpenAI, currently valued at $852 billion, is under performance pressure commensurate with this figure. The company submitted a confidential IPO filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in June, simultaneously with Anthropic, but neither has disclosed a specific listing timeline.
In terms of infrastructure investment, OpenAI disclosed to investors in February that it plans to invest approximately $600 billion cumulatively in computing power by 2030. According to CNBC reports earlier this week, the company is currently negotiating with Nvidia for up to $250 billion in financial support to lease a large-scale AI data center in Ohio.
To support these massive infrastructure expenditures, OpenAI needs to continuously expand its enterprise and developer user base to generate sufficient revenue cash flow. The July revenue data may become one of the most compelling arguments in its IPO roadshow.
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