OpenAI missed sales, user targets, fueling spending concerns: Report

OpenAI recently failed to meet its own goals for new user acquisition and sales, fueling internal concerns that the company may struggle to support its spending on AI infrastructure, the Wall Street Journal reported.

 

The company fell short of several monthly sales targets in 2026 after rival Anthropic PBC gained ground in the coding and enterprise markets, WSJ reported Monday, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.

 

Its ChatGPT chatbot also didn’t hit the company’s target of one billion weekly active users by the end of 2025, the newspaper said. Its subscriber defection rate remains a challenge, according to WSJ, as Google’s Gemini rose in popularity last year.

 

Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar, in conversations with other company leaders, has expressed concerns that if OpenAI doesn’t increase sales fast enough, it may not be able to afford its future computing needs, WSJ said. There are growing worries among investors that AI developers and Big Tech firms are spending too much on data centers and chips for AI, with an uncertain payoff.

 

OpenAI alone has previously said it’s committed to spend more than $1.4 trillion on AI infrastructure. To finance those bets, OpenAI and Anthropic have increasingly tapped an overlapping group of venture funds and tech companies. In February, OpenAI raised $110 billion in its largest funding round thus far from investors including major backer SoftBank Group Corp.

 

Shares of SoftBank, which committed $30 billion in that round, fell as much as 7.5 per cent in Tokyo. The latest commitment would bring SoftBank’s investment in OpenAI to $64.6 billion, for a stake of about 13 per cent, by year-end.