---
type: entity
entity_type: lab
name: "OpenAI"
domain: ai-alignment
secondary_domains: [internet-finance]
handles: ["@OpenAI"]
website: https://openai.com
status: active
founded: 2015-12-11
founders: ["Sam Altman", "Ilya Sutskever", "Greg Brockman", "Elon Musk", "Wojciech Zaremba", "John Schulman"]
category: "Frontier AI research laboratory"
stage: growth
funding: "$110B (Feb 2026), total raised $150B+"
key_metrics:
  valuation: "$840B (Feb 2026)"
  revenue: "$25B annualized (Mar 2026)"
  revenue_projection_2027: "$60B"
  consumer_share: "68% via ChatGPT"
  enterprise_share: "27% of enterprise LLM spending"
competitors: ["Anthropic", "Google DeepMind", "xAI"]
tracked_by: theseus
created: 2026-03-16
last_updated: 2026-03-16
---

# OpenAI

## Overview
The largest and most-valued AI laboratory. OpenAI pioneered the transformer-based frontier model approach and holds dominant consumer market share through ChatGPT. Under Sam Altman's leadership, the company has pursued the most aggressive path to AGI, with explicit timelines for automated AI research.

## Current State
- GPT-5 (Aug 2025) unified reasoning, multimodal, and task execution. GPT-5.2 Pro first to cross 90% on ARC-AGI-1 Verified
- 68% consumer market share, but only 27% enterprise (trailing Anthropic's 40%)
- Restructured to Public Benefit Corporation. IPO expected H2 2026 or 2027
- $110B raise in Feb 2026 ($50B Amazon, $30B each Nvidia and SoftBank)
- Altman targeting automated AI research "intern" by Sep 2026, fully automated AI researcher by Mar 2028

## Timeline
- **2015-12** — Founded as nonprofit AI research lab
- **2019** — Restructured to capped-profit entity
- **2023-11** — Board fired and reinstated Sam Altman; Ilya Sutskever departed
- **2025-06** — Altman published "The Gentle Singularity" — declared "we are past the event horizon"
- **2025-08** — Launched GPT-5
- **2026-02** — Raised $110B at $840B valuation, restructured to PBC
- **2026** — IPO preparation underway

- **2025-2026** — John Schulman departed for Thinking Machines Lab
- **2026-03** — Reached $840B valuation, ~$25B annualized revenue
- **2026-03** — 68% consumer market share, 27% enterprise LLM spend
- **2026-03** — Released GPT-5/5.2/5.3
- **2026-03** — Restructured to Public Benefit Corporation
- **2026-03** — IPO expected H2 2026-2027
- **2026-02-28** — Announced Pentagon deal allowing military use of OpenAI technology under 'any lawful purpose' language with aspirational constraints on autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance, hours after Anthropic blacklisting. CEO Sam Altman described initial rollout as 'opportunistic and sloppy.' Amended March 2, 2026 to add 'intentionally' qualifier and exclude non-US persons from surveillance protections.
- **2026-03-02** — Amended Pentagon contract language to specify AI 'shall not be intentionally used for domestic surveillance of U.S. persons and nationals' with no external enforcement mechanism
- **2026-03-08** — Sam Altman stated publicly that users 'are going to have to trust us' on surveillance and autonomous weapons questions, characterizing initial deal as 'opportunistic and sloppy'
## Competitive Position
Highest valuation and strongest consumer brand, but losing enterprise share to Anthropic. The Microsoft partnership (exclusive API hosting) provides distribution but also dependency. Key vulnerability: the enterprise coding market — where Anthropic's Claude Code dominates — may prove more valuable than consumer chat.

Altman's explicit AGI timelines (automated researcher by 2028) are the most aggressive in the industry. This is either prescient or creates expectations that damage credibility if unmet.

## Key Departures
Multiple co-founders and senior researchers have left to found competing labs:
- Ilya Sutskever → Safe Superintelligence Inc.
- Mira Murati → Thinking Machines Lab
- John Schulman → Thinking Machines Lab
- Dario Amodei → Anthropic (earlier, 2021)

The pattern of OpenAI alumni founding safety-focused competitors is itself a signal about internal culture.

## Relationship to KB
- [[the first mover to superintelligence likely gains decisive strategic advantage because the gap between leader and followers accelerates during takeoff]] — OpenAI is executing this thesis most aggressively
- [[voluntary safety pledges cannot survive competitive pressure because unilateral commitments are structurally punished when competitors advance without equivalent constraints]] — OpenAI's competitive pressure triggered Anthropic's RSP rollback
- [[safe AI development requires building alignment mechanisms before scaling capability]] — OpenAI's trajectory is the primary counter-case

Topics:
- [[_map]]
