OpenAI's revenue comes in $20bn lower⁠.

OpenAI has told investors that its revenue for this year will reach $50bn (£37bn), a projection based on sales up to the end of September¹. That is about $20bn less than the $70bn it signalled in information given to investors last month, a figure that was widely reported¹. The Financial Times reported the lower number, saying the company now puts its annualised revenue at "approaching $50 billion"².

The gap arose from attempts by OpenAI's own investors to compare the business directly with Anthropic, its main rival¹. The two firms count annualised revenue differently². Anthropic includes sales made through cloud partners such as Amazon's AWS and Google Cloud, and OpenAI does not¹. Anthropic reached $65bn in forecast revenue by the end of July¹.

News of the shortfall knocked US technology shares on Thursday, and the Nasdaq closed down 1.4%¹. Nvidia fell 2.9%, Oracle 5.5% and Micron 4.8%¹. Forecasts from the leading AI companies are watched closely by markets as a sign of overall demand for a technology attracting huge investment¹.

The sums riding on the number are large. OpenAI closed a $122bn funding round in March at a valuation of $852bn¹. It is in early talks to raise a further $30bn at a valuation of about $1.4tn¹. Its leaked 2025 accounts showed it made about $13bn but spent significantly more². A stock market listing, once rumoured for this year, has been pushed back to early 2027².

Anthropic is moving the other way. Two months after OpenAI's March round, it announced it had raised $65bn at a valuation of $965bn¹. It is expected to press ahead with a stock market listing as soon as next month¹.

A smaller number, the same bill

Nothing about the tools you use changed this week. ChatGPT works as it did on Monday. What changed is the number its maker uses to justify what it spends, and that number turned out to depend on who was doing the counting. Two firms measuring revenue in two different ways is ordinary. Comparing them as if the measures were the same, and repeating the result, is how a $20bn gap appears without a single customer leaving.

For a British buyer the lesson is about suppliers, not shares. A vendor's growth figures tell you little about whether it will be around, or priced the same, in three years. Before you sign anything long, ask how prices are set, how you would move your data and workflows if you had to, and keep a second supplier tested. The reporting carries no British angle beyond the sterling conversion.

Also today

• Anthropic bars sustained cruelty towards Claude in new rules

  Anthropic has updated its usage policy for the first time in over a year, adding rules on election interference, weapons software and surveillance, and banning sustained, needless abuse of Claude³.

• Nvidia-backed Firmus scraps its stock market listing

  Firmus, which builds data centres for clients including OpenAI and Meta, dropped a listing that valued it at more than $30bn, citing market volatility, as investors question returns on AI spending⁴.

• White House bars Microsoft from a residency route for foreign staff

  The US government will stop processing permanent residency labour certifications for Microsoft and seven other firms, including Infosys, Tata and Capgemini, after the vice president accused them of visa fraud⁵.

• Google gives business customers one Gemini agent for their work

  Google has launched a Gemini agent for businesses that plans tasks, connects to systems such as Microsoft 365, Slack and Jira, and lets users switch to Anthropic's Claude models⁶.

• Tom Watson warns ministers against mob rule on Palantir contracts

  Lord Watson, the former Labour deputy leader now at Palantir, warned against "mob rule" in public procurement as the government faces pressure to drop a £330m NHS software deal⁷.