OpenAI’s big miss?

“Is OpenAI falling further behind?

 

Until yesterday, the conversation around OpenAI was about Elon Musk’s lawsuit against the artificial intelligence giant.

 

But OpenAI may have bigger problems.

 

A new report raises questions about the ambitious spending plans of its C.E.O., Sam Altman, and the company’s standing in the A.I. race.

 

OpenAI has missed its user and revenue targets, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing anonymous sources. Internally, it had sought to hit one billion weekly active ChatGPT users by the end of 2025, a goal it still hasn’t announced, and has seen users defect to rivals.

 

Sarah Friar, its C.F.O., has told fellow executives that she’s worried about paying for future computing contracts at the current business trajectory, The Journal adds, while directors have been re-examining its data center plans.

 

Altman and Friar told The Journal that any suggestion that the company would pull back on computing power investments was “ridiculous.”

 

The reporting amplifies worries that OpenAI is losing ground, as Google’s Gemini and especially Anthropic’s Claude take more market share, especially in the hugely important enterprise market.

 

The company last week introduced an A.I. model that it says outperforms on many benchmarks. And it has redoubled efforts to make its Codex A.I. coding tool more competitive against Anthropic’s Claude Code.

 

Why that matters: Altman has embraced hugely expensive ambitions to expand the company’s computing capacity. But OpenAI has had to pull back on building its own expansive data center clusters, given pushback from potential lenders.

 

If it’s falling further behind on business goals, which could further constrain OpenAI’s growth initiatives.

 

OpenAI is already taking a risk by revamping its relationship with Microsoft, historically its biggest backer. The two companies said yesterday that OpenAI would now be free to provide its models on other cloud providers, but that it also would trim a key revenue-sharing arrangement with Microsoft.

 

OpenAI says it now has more business flexibility. But Martin Peers of The Information questioned that premise, since it’s unclear whether Amazon’s AWS customers would be willing to switch over from Claude.

 

What about the I.P.O.? Remember that some executives want to take the company public by year end. Is that still possible? (Shares of companies linked to OpenAI, including SoftBank and Oracle, were down on The Journal’s report.)

 

    In other A.I. news: Google has signed a contract to provide A.I. services for classified Pentagon work despite employees’ concerns, The Information reports.” [1]

 

1. DealBook: OpenAI’s big miss? New York Times (Online) New York Times Company. Apr 28, 2026.