OpenAI’s Q3 Said to Reach $10B; Anthropic’s Filed Q3 Is 1.7x

OpenAI’s revenue reached $10 billion in the third quarter, according to The Information, as relayed by FirstSquawk, which said demand for GPT 5.6 and Astra drove sales. Yahoo Finance’s Deirdre Bosa reported the same figure, up from about $6.7 billion, or 49.3% quarter-on-quarter growth by our arithmetic.

Anthropic’s own S-1/A, filed on 10 November, puts its revenue for the three months to 30 September at $16,956 million, as we reported. That is 1.7 times OpenAI’s reported $10 billion, a gap of $6.96 billion, and 46.7% growth on the June quarter, by our arithmetic.

Business Pill · Tokens Explained

An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on tokens. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss these revenue figures.

The key insight: OpenAI’s revenue reached $10 billion in the third quarter, according to The Information and Yahoo Finance, up from about $6.7 billion, or 49.3% by our arithmetic. Anthropic filed $16,956 million for the same quarter in its S-1/A, 1.7 times the reported OpenAI figure, after its own growth slowed from 144.2% in the June quarter to 46.7%, by our arithmetic.

What Was Reported

Bosa said in the Yahoo Finance segment that she had “some new numbers from OpenAI”. She said that for the first time this year OpenAI is growing at roughly the same pace as Anthropic quarter over quarter, after “Anthropic grew 144%. OpenAI just 18%” in the second quarter.

The FirstSquawk relay of The Information’s report reads “OPENAI REVENUE JUMPED TO $10 BLN IN Q3, WITH DEMAND FOR GPT 5.6 AND ASTRA DRIVING SALES”. OpenAI is private and does not file its revenue with the SEC, as we noted on 6 November.

Quarterly revenue in US$ billion: Anthropic's filed figures for the June and September 2026 quarters from its
Quarterly revenue in US$ billion: Anthropic’s filed figures for the June and September 2026 quarters from its S-1/A (unaudited), and OpenAI’s reported figures, $10 billion for the third quarter per The Information and Yahoo Finance and about $6.7 billion for the second per Yahoo Finance. OpenAI does not file its revenue. 1.7x is our arithmetic.

What Was Posted on X

IPO Newsroom posted on 10 November that OpenAI’s revenue jumped to $10 billion in the third quarter, citing The Information, and set it next to the $17.0 billion Anthropic reported for the three months ended September 30 in its IPO filing. The OpenAI figure is a reported number; the Anthropic figure is from its filing. This piece compares the two; Anthropic’s filing says it books cloud marketplace revenue gross, and Yahoo Finance’s Deirdre Bosa said the companies account for cloud sales differently.

What Anthropic Filed

Anthropic’s S-1/A gives unaudited quarterly revenue of $4,731 million for the March quarter, $11,555 million for June and $16,956 million for September. That is 144.2% growth in the second quarter and 46.7% in the third, by our arithmetic, in line with the figures Bosa cited.

The filing says that when Anthropic sells through cloud providers’ marketplaces, it “recognizes revenue on a gross basis”. Bosa said “there are some differences in how these companies account for cloud sales”, so the exact size of the lead is hard to pin down.

The Structural Read

As we read it, the comparison now turns on growth rates more than size: the reported figures put the two companies’ quarterly growth within about three points of each other, by our arithmetic, for the first time this year in the figures Bosa cited. Because one number is filed and the other reported, and the two account for cloud sales differently, the size of the gap is not established.

Deirdre Bosa, Yahoo Finance, 10 Nov 2026

“For the first time this year, OpenAI, it’s growing at roughly the same pace as Anthropic quarter over quarter, and that is a big deal, especially because Anthropic is about to go public.”

Three Implications

FOR ANTHROPIC’S IPO BUYERS Anthropic’s filed growth slowed from 144.2% to 46.7% quarter-on-quarter, by our arithmetic, in the quarter before its listing.

FOR OPENAI The reported $10 billion is 49.3% above the approximately $6.7 billion prior quarter, by our arithmetic; OpenAI does not file its revenue.

FOR THE COMPARISON Anthropic recognizes cloud marketplace revenue on a gross basis, its S-1/A says, and Bosa said the companies account for cloud sales differently.

The Business Engineer Lens

This story maps onto the Business Engineer framework The CFO’s Guide to the Token Economy.

The framework says that as companies move to agentic workflows, “the line item that used to be a rounding error becomes the budget”.

As we read it, the two labs’ quarterly revenue is the other side of that budget line: $16,956 million filed by Anthropic and a reported $10 billion for OpenAI in one quarter. The framework predates these figures and does not discuss them.

What Is Not Established

We have not read The Information’s article, which is paywalled; the $10 billion comes from its relay by FirstSquawk and from Bosa’s segment. OpenAI’s figure is reported, not filed, and neither source says how it is measured. The $6.7 billion prior-quarter figure is Bosa’s approximation. The 1.7 times comparison sets a filed figure against a reported one and does not adjust for accounting differences.

This Week In The AI Supercycle

The Great Convergence of Capital, Power, and Geopolitics

This week’s issue: for two years the AI build-out was priced as a supply story, and last week as a credit story. This week it was priced as a permission story, and the answer arrived as a cost, not a ban.

Read the full issue →

Business Engineer Framework

The CFO’s Guide to the Token Economy

The Business Engineer framework on AI spend as a budget line.

Read the Map of AI →

The Bottom Line

OpenAI’s third-quarter revenue reached $10 billion, according to The Information and Yahoo Finance, up 49.3% on the reported prior quarter by our arithmetic. Anthropic filed $16,956 million for the same quarter, 1.7 times the reported OpenAI figure, after growth slowed from 144.2% to 46.7%, by our arithmetic.

95,000+ executives read Business Engineer for the AI strategy frameworks cited by ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity.

A note on sourcing. OpenAI’s figures come from The Information, as relayed by FirstSquawk, and from a Yahoo Finance segment by Deirdre Bosa; we did not read The Information’s article. Anthropic’s figures come from its S-1/A filed with the SEC on 10 November 2026. Growth rates, the ratio and the gap are our arithmetic.

Sources: FirstSquawk on X, relaying The Information, 10 Nov 2026 · Yahoo Finance, OpenAI and Anthropic are now neck and neck on quarterly revenue growth (Deirdre Bosa), 10 Nov 2026 · Anthropic, PBC, Form S-1/A, SEC EDGAR, 10 Nov 2026

Scroll to Top
FourWeekMBA