OpenAI's enterprise business now produces more revenue than its consumer operations, a crossover the company reached earlier than it had projected. Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar told investors that business customer growth accelerated 32% in July and that the company's annualized revenue run rate has reached $40 billion. Friar also said the advertising business is approaching a $1 billion annualized run rate.
The revenue shift is changing how corporate buyers measure spending. Friar described customers moving away from unrestricted token consumption toward evaluating cost per unit of intelligence and measurable output. OpenAI has responded with efficiency improvements and price reductions on its models.
Separately, OpenAI began serving ChatGPT advertisements across 31 European markets on August 24, extending an advertising business that launched in the United States six months earlier. European advertisers will initially buy through major agency groups, with self-serve access planned later. The company said it adapted its privacy policies to address General Data Protection Regulation requirements and that user conversations stay private and are not shared with advertisers. Cost per click buying now accounts for most of its ad spending. OpenAI said roughly 20% of ChatGPT queries carry direct commercial intent.
The enterprise revenue milestone lands alongside broader signals of production deployment. Salesforce reported that the average number of AI agents running per organization nearly tripled from five in early 2025 to 13 by April 2026, based on production activity at 400 businesses and a survey of nearly 5,000 people. Agent creation time fell 53% over the same period.
Source: MarketingProfs - https://www.marketingprofs.com/opinions/2026/55655/ai-update-august-21-2026-ai-news-and-views-from-the-past-two-weeks