Path to Public Offering

OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman said the company would be ready for an IPO in 2027, noting that its enterprise revenue has been growing. Speaking at a Wall Street Journal tech conference, the executive touted how the company had been gaining ground in the enterprise market, where rival Anthropic had already successfully made inroads.

In response to a question about being IPO-ready next year, Brockman replied, "I think so. Yes."

“We’ve been very clear this year that we want to go public when we feel is the right time for us, and I feel extremely good about the business. I feel like we’ve made so much progress this year, and I’ve honestly never felt more confident in what we’re doing,” Brockman said.

Enterprise Market Strategy

He detailed how OpenAI’s trajectory as an enterprise had changed over the course of 2026, noting that the first and second quarters were difficult. He also admitted that OpenAI was previously not a major player in agentic coding, an area where Anthropic’s Claude Code has gained market share.

“We had Codex, but no one was talking about it,” Brockman continued, “and I think that we just kept our heads down and executed.”

By the third quarter, activity picked up, as OpenAI saw 70% quarterly growth in its annualized revenue, which Brockman attributed to the enterprise side of the business doubling. He explained that the growth was the culmination of investments the company had been making over time.

Now the majority of OpenAI’s revenue is coming from the enterprise business, which previously accounted for only around 30% of its total revenue.

“And it’s not that consumer revenue has shrunk… It’s been growing, but the enterprise segment has really taken off,” he said, pointing to a recent partnership with JPMorgan Chase as one example of the type of client it is now winning.

Building Long-Term Trust

Brockman also spoke about the lessons OpenAI learned from selling into the enterprise market. He said the company had come to understand that its job was to help businesses identify important milestones they could achieve with its AI technology, build trust with clients, and demonstrate that it was a reliable partner for the long haul.

“A year ago, we weren’t even really in the enterprise game, right? We were really perceived as a consumer company, and a lot of the companies we’d start talking to would say, ‘Is OpenAI really committed to the enterprise?’” Brockman said. “But it’s so different today.”