According to a Wall Street Journal report released on Monday, OpenAI failed to meet its internal revenue and user acquisition targets in 2026. This raises concerns about the artificial intelligence company’s ability to maintain its massive infrastructure spending as it gets ready for a planned IPO later this year.
A CFO’s Caution
The deficiencies coincide with concerns raised by CFO Sarah Friar within the organization. According to The Information, Friar told coworkers earlier this year that she wasn’t sure if OpenAI’s lagging revenue growth could sustain its enormous computer obligations. She has stated that she does not think OpenAI is organizationally prepared for a public listing in 2026 and has questioned whether the firm should invest hundreds of billions of dollars in AI servers over the next few years.
CEO Sam Altman, who is advocating for a fourth-quarter IPO, is at odds with Friar due to internal conflicts. According to reports, Friar has not been directly under Altman’s supervision since August 2025 and has been excluded from several important conversations about capital strategy and infrastructure. Friar admitted that OpenAI is “making some very tough trades at the moment and things we’re not pursuing because we don’t have enough compute” in an interview with Cathie Wood of ARK Invest that was published in early April.
Anthropic Bridges The Divide
The failed goals come as competitor Anthropic advances in markets vital to OpenAI’s expansion. According to data reported by Reuters, Anthropic accounted for almost 40% of enterprise AI spending by early 2026, up from 12% in 2023, while OpenAI’s share decreased from 50% to 27% during the same period. Thanks to the success of its Claude coding agents, Anthropic currently commands an estimated 54% of corporate coding usage, compared to OpenAI’s 21%. According to a March Axios research, Anthropic is accounting for over 73% of businesses’ first-time AI product purchases.
The Path Ahead
By February 2026, OpenAI’s annualized revenue will have surpassed $25 billion, and the company will have 900 million monthly ChatGPT users. However, the corporation anticipates losing $14 billion this year and won’t turn a profit until at least 2030. It has reduced its $1.4 trillion aim to about $600 billion on computing infrastructure through 2030. By the end of the decade, OpenAI is expected to have a $207 billion funding gap, according to HSBC analysts.
In an effort to counter competitive pressure from Anthropic and Google, the company launched GPT-5.5, its most recent model with improved coding and research capabilities, on April 23. The key concern for OpenAI and any investor thinking about purchasing its stock is whether that release and subsequent product launches can spur growth sufficiently to support the company’s $852 billion value.