OpenAI president Greg Brockman said at The Wall Street Journal’s WSJ Tech conference on 4 November that OpenAI had “70% quarterly growth in our annualized revenue” in the third quarter, and that the enterprise side was “doubling”. The words are from WSJ’s own caption file for a 71-second clip of the session, published at 02:04 UTC on 5 November.
By our arithmetic from Anthropic’s amended Form S-1, Anthropic’s reported revenue grew about 47% in the same quarter, from $11,555 million to $16,956 million. Brockman’s 70% is 23 percentage points higher. The two are different measures: his is growth in annualized revenue as he stated it, with no dollar figure, and Anthropic’s is revenue for the quarter in a filing.
Business Pill · Run-Rate Revenue
A one-minute Business Engineer explainer of run-rate revenue. It explains the general idea only and does not discuss OpenAI, Anthropic or the figures in this piece.
The key insight: Greg Brockman said at WSJ Tech that OpenAI had “70% quarterly growth in our annualized revenue” in the third quarter, with the enterprise side “doubling”. By our arithmetic from Anthropic’s S-1/A, Anthropic’s reported quarterly revenue grew about 47% in the same quarter, on a different measure.
WSJ titled the clip “Greg Brockman on the Rise of Anthropic”. The interviewer asked: “So when did you personally realize that Anthropic was going to overtake you guys in revenue?” WSJ’s description says Brockman talks about “the realization that Anthropic was going to bypass them in revenue this year and how OpenAI is recovering.”
Brockman answered: “So I think to me, this became fairly clear, honestly, even at the very beginning of the year.” He described the first half this way: “Q1 was pretty rough. Q2 was pretty rough. It really looked in many ways like coding, we weren’t even in the conversation. We had Codex, but no one was talking about it.”
On the third quarter, he said: “And Q3, entirely different. We had 70% quarterly growth in our annualized revenue. And if you just break it down by the enterprise side, doubling, right? That’s like crazy growth for a single quarter.”
He tied the turn to earlier work: “It wasn’t something we did in that quarter. It was all the investments that we’d been making up to that date.” He named two launches: “we got a Frontier model out in the form of GPT-5.6 Sol. We got ChatGPT work released as well.”
Quarter-on-quarter growth in the third quarter of 2026: OpenAI’s annualized revenue, 70%, as Greg Brockman stated it at WSJ Tech (unaudited, no dollar base given), against Anthropic’s reported quarterly revenue, about 47%, by our arithmetic from its S-1/A ($11,555 million to $16,956 million). Different measures; the 23-point gap is our arithmetic.
What Was Posted on X
OpenAI President Greg Brockman admits the first half of 2026 was “pretty rough” as Anthropic pulled ahead in enterprise AI.
“We had Codex, but no one was talking about it.”
Then Q3 changed everything: OpenAI’s annualized revenue grew 70% IN ONE QUARTER, enterprise revenue DOUBLED, and business customers now account for the majority of its revenue.
Brockman credited GPT-5.6 Sol and ChatGPT Work for the turnaround, per WSJ.
Asked whether OpenAI would be ready for an IPO in 2027, he replied: ‘I think so.’
Choblin (@choblin29) posted this at 07:35 UTC on 5 November 2026, summarising the Wall Street Journal’s account of Brockman’s remarks. It repeats what this piece reports from WSJ’s caption file of a 71-second clip of the session: a ‘pretty rough’ first half, ‘We had Codex, but no one was talking about it’, 70% quarterly growth in OpenAI’s annualized revenue in the third quarter, and the enterprise side ‘doubling’, plus GPT-5.6 Sol and ChatGPT Work as the launches he named and the ‘I think so’ on IPO readiness that Reuters reported. The phrases ‘Anthropic pulled ahead in enterprise AI’ and ‘Q3 changed everything’ are Choblin’s framing, not Brockman’s words.
The IPO and the Enterprise Majority
Reuters, in a story timestamped 02:07 UTC as carried by CNA, reported that Brockman said OpenAI “now generates the majority of its revenue from enterprise sales”. Reuters gave no percentage. When asked on stage if OpenAI will be ready for an IPO next year, Brockman said, “I think so,” according to Reuters.
Reuters also reported that Brockman said OpenAI has been ramping up sales to businesses in competition with Anthropic, including pushing its Codex agent. Our 15 August piece reported CNBC’s account that OpenAI chief financial officer Sarah Friar told investors enterprise revenue had crossed above consumer: “We entered the year at 60-40, but enterprise has accelerated much faster than expected and those lines have now crossed.”
Set Against Anthropic’s Filing
Anthropic’s S-1/A, filed on 2 November, gives quarterly revenue of $4,731 million, $11,555 million and $16,956 million for the three months to 31 March, 30 June and 30 September 2026. By our arithmetic, that is growth of about 144% in the second quarter and about 47% in the third.
On those figures, Brockman’s 70% for OpenAI in the third quarter is about 1.5 times Anthropic’s 47%, by our arithmetic. The comparison is between a run-rate figure he stated on stage, which is unaudited, and reported revenue in a registration statement. It shows growth rates only; neither source we read gives OpenAI’s revenue in dollars.
Taking his two figures together, if enterprise annualized revenue doubled while the total grew 70%, the rest of OpenAI’s annualized revenue grew by less than 70% in the quarter, by our arithmetic.
The Business Lever
The business lever in this story is enterprise sales. Brockman named a model and a work product, GPT-5.6 Sol and ChatGPT work, as the launches behind the third quarter, and named coding as the area where OpenAI had not been “even in the conversation” earlier in the year.
As we read the clip, Brockman puts OpenAI’s recovery in the business market. Anthropic’s filing does not split revenue that way; its total quarterly revenue rose about 3.6 times from the first quarter of 2026 to the third, by our arithmetic.
Connecting the Coverage
Our related pieces on OpenAI, Anthropic and the race for business customers:
As we read the clip, Brockman places OpenAI’s first-half problem in coding: he said “we weren’t even in the conversation” and that Codex existed but “no one was talking about it.”
As we read the two sets of numbers, one is a growth rate Brockman stated for run-rate revenue and the other is filed quarterly revenue; without dollar figures from OpenAI, the 70% does not convert into a revenue gap between the two companies.
As we read Reuters’ account next to our August piece, the enterprise majority is the crossing Friar described to investors in August, now restated by OpenAI’s president on the stage where, Reuters reported, he answered “I think so” on IPO readiness.
Greg Brockman, OpenAI president, at WSJ Tech, 4 November 2026 (WSJ caption file)
“And Q3, entirely different. We had 70% quarterly growth in our annualized revenue.”
Three Implications
FOR OPENAI Reuters reported Brockman said OpenAI will be ready for an IPO next year, answering “I think so”. Anthropic’s S-1/A gives revenue in dollars for each quarter; the clip gives OpenAI’s growth rate only.
FOR ANTHROPIC Its filing shows quarter-on-quarter revenue growth of about 144% in the second quarter and about 47% in the third, by our arithmetic, and traders put 55% odds on its shares starting to trade in the week of 16 November.
FOR BUYERS OF CODING AGENTS In the same week, OpenAI said it will acquire Pierre, whose libraries are used in the Codex app, and Cat Wu, described by Business Insider as Claude Code’s head of product, said Wu is joining OpenAI.
The analysis says: “The surface, not the model, governs autonomy.”
As we read it, Brockman credited the third quarter to a model, GPT-5.6 Sol, and a work surface, ChatGPT work, after a first half in which Codex existed but “no one was talking about it.” The analysis compares OpenAI’s Codex data with Anthropic’s usage data and does not discuss these revenue figures.
What Is Not Established
The clip we read does not give OpenAI’s annualized revenue in dollars, the base the 70% applies to, or the share of revenue from enterprise. The “majority” line and the IPO answer come from Reuters’ account. WSJ’s caption file for the full session, which runs 1,772 seconds, returned Access Denied to us, so we have not read the rest of the full session, and the clip contains no statement on compute.
The 47%, 144%, 3.6 times, 1.5 times and 23 points are our arithmetic. The sources we read give no IPO date or terms for OpenAI.
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A Business Engineer analysis of why the agentic surface, not the model, is where value pools in the AI stack, read from OpenAI’s Codex data and Anthropic’s usage data.
Greg Brockman said at WSJ Tech that OpenAI’s annualized revenue grew 70% in the third quarter, with the enterprise side doubling, after two quarters he called “pretty rough”. Anthropic’s filing shows its quarterly revenue grew about 47% in the same quarter, by our arithmetic, on a different measure. Reuters reported he said OpenAI now gets most of its revenue from enterprise sales and answered “I think so” on an IPO next year.
95,000+ executives read Business Engineer for the AI strategy frameworks cited by ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity.
A note on sourcing. Brockman’s words are from The Wall Street Journal’s own English caption file for its 71-second clip of his WSJ Tech session on 4 November 2026; we did not read the full session, whose caption file was not accessible to us. The enterprise-majority line and the IPO answer are Reuters’ account, as carried by CNA. Anthropic’s quarterly revenue is from its S-1/A of 2 November 2026 (unaudited quarterly figures).
OpenAI’s growth figure is as Brockman stated it, unaudited. The 47%, 144%, 3.6 times, 1.5 times and 23 points are our arithmetic, comparing different measures.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
