OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has told staff that he expects the company to go public "within the next year," according to The Information report on Wednesday. The ChatGPT maker confirmed it had confidentially filed for a U.S. initial public offering on Monday, joining rival Anthropic in seeking public funding. While Altman noted that "many things could cause it to be sooner or later in that range, but filing now gives us optionality if we want to go sooner," the company emphasized that a timeline remains undetermined. As per The Information, Altman stated that "the faster the potential RSI takeoff looks like it could be, the more it could be advantageous to delay an IPO," referring to recursive self-improvement capabilities that could weaken the push for a quick public offering. The company recently submitted a confidential draft registration statement to U.S. regulators, giving it the flexibility to move ahead with an offering when market conditions and internal priorities align.
OpenAI is preparing its biggest ChatGPT overhaul since the chatbot launched in 2022, with the redesign set to turn ChatGPT into a comprehensive super app built around coding tools, AI agents, and creative features. According to The Financial Times, the rollout will begin in the coming weeks across ChatGPT's website and mobile apps, anchoring a pre-IPO push for enterprise customers where margins run higher than consumer subscriptions. The new interface will steer ChatGPT's reported 900 million weekly users to built-in coding, image generation, and partner apps. The long-term strategy goes further, with OpenAI intending to "ditch the prompts and features" and bet that its models will be able to automatically understand users' intentions when they are on the app or site.
OpenAI is preparing to launch a tender offer "very soon" at the current share price of $687.69, as reported by The Information. The company is also planning to launch a tender sale of shares to provide liquidity to employees in the coming weeks before heading to the IPO route. This employee liquidity initiative comes as OpenAI continues its major ChatGPT redesign initiative, with the company stating it has not decided on a specific timeline yet as they may want to execute certain things as a private company but will choose the public option if it's the best alternative available. The tender offer represents a significant step in the company's broader strategy to provide liquidity to its workforce while maintaining its private status.
OpenAI's recent operating figures have added to expectations surrounding a potential listing, with the company previously reporting more than 900 million weekly ChatGPT users and over 50 million consumer subscribers before the confidential filing became public. Revenue growth has accelerated significantly, with OpenAI stating in March that it was generating approximately $2 billion in monthly revenue, compared to about $1 billion in quarterly revenue at the end of 2024. The company recently raised $110 billion at an $840 billion valuation from heavyweight backers including SoftBank, Amazon, and Nvidia. At that valuation, OpenAI would set the stage for a trio of trillion-dollar valuation companies debuting rapidly and is seen as the most consequential test of investor appetite for high-growth technology stocks in the recent decade.
Over the past year, OpenAI has expanded monetisation efforts around ChatGPT, its flagship chatbot product, launching a lower-cost $8 subscription tier and introducing advertising options as part of efforts to broaden revenue streams. According to a report by The Information in April, OpenAI expects the cheaper subscription plan to help drive subscriber numbers to 122 million this year. The report also said the company projects advertising to become its largest source of revenue by 2030. At the same time, OpenAI has sought to position itself as more than just a chatbot company, launching a web browser, announcing plans to develop consumer hardware products, introducing an AI agent capable of coding and managing applications on a user's computer, and rolling out AI tools for sectors including government, healthcare and finance. The company's expansion comes as it faces pressure to prove it can generate revenue at a scale that justifies its valuation, with investors increasingly scrutinizing AI companies and their spending patterns.
OpenAI's filing arrives as several high-profile artificial intelligence companies prepare for public market debuts, with rival Anthropic also confidentially filing paperwork for an IPO earlier this month. The AI IPO activity is adding momentum to the public market as investors await SpaceX's proposed public offering, which is pursuing a $75 billion IPO that could value the business at roughly $1.75 trillion, making it the largest public offering in U.S. history if completed. However, the deal has drawn criticism from Senator Elizabeth Warren, who urged the SEC to delay the listing over investor-protection and governance concerns. According to The Information, bankers noted that large AI offerings such as OpenAI and Anthropic could draw capital away from smaller IPO candidates, while successful debuts could encourage additional companies to enter the public market, creating a key test of investor demand for high-growth technology stocks.
