OpenAI’s revenue is reportedly booming

We don’t know if OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, is actually making any money so far. But thanks to a Wednesday report in The Information, what we do know is that the company doubled its annualized revenue — a measure of the previous month’s revenue multiplied by 12, as the publication helpfully explained — in the last six months.

OpenAI’s annualized revenue was $3.4 billion, CEO Sam Altman reportedly told staff. That’s up from $1.6 billion around the end of last year, and $1 billion a year ago. Most of this revenue came from a subscription version of ChatGPT, which offers higher messaging limits to people who pay at least $20 a month, as well as from developers who pay the company to use the company’s large language models in their own apps and services. About $200 million on an annualized basis comes from Microsoft, which gives OpenAI a cut of sales of OpenAI’s large language models to customers using Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform aimed at businesses.

Notably, an OpenAI spokesperson told The Information that the financials were “inaccurate” but did not explain which details it disputed. OpenAI did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for comment.

Earlier this week, Apple announced a partnership with OpenAI. The company plans to hook ChatGPT right into its operating systems for iPhones, iPads, and Macs, letting Siri reach out to ChatGPT to answer questions. The financial terms of that deal, however, are still unknown.