--- title: "OpenAI Is Sustaining Enormous Losses" description: "OpenAI revealed to investors that it lost even more money this quarter than the last despite accelerating growth." date: "2026-11-12" modified: "2026-11-12" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore.md" url: "https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/openai-enormous-losses" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "OpenAI" --- # OpenAI Is Sustaining Enormous Losses ![A color-treated close up photo of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.]() *Alex Wong / Getty Images / Futurism* OpenAI is losing money out the wazoo. The ChatGPT maker told investors Tuesday that its operating losses in the third quarter topped $10.9 billion, up from $10.1 billion in the previous one. That's striking because the company actually grew its revenue by around 50 percent from the second to the third quarter, [per the *The Wall Street Journal*](), though it wasn't enough to offset its astonishing expenses — illustrating just how steep of a gap it still has to close to achieve profitability. The increased revenue also came by betraying a core promise, which is hardly a surprise for a company that has long abandoned its eponymous tenet of promoting open-source AI development. In February, OpenAI started showing ads on its chatbot, an idea that CEO Sam Altman had previously called "unsettling" and vowed would only be used a "last resort." The company's chief competitor Anthropic ruthlessly mocked it for the reversal in a series of Superbowl commercials, and many users were furious. The company hasn't officially reported how much stuffing ads into its premier product is earning it, but in August [it said]() that its ad division was on track to rake in $1 billion in a year. The news comes not long after [controversy over how OpenAI was projecting its earnings](). In October, the company [reported]() an annualized revenue, an estimate of how much money it will earn over a year, of about $50 billion — which was $20 billion short of what it told investors only a month before. The discrepancy was taken as an admission that the business models of AI companies weren't as robust as their leadership was making them out to be, fueling [speculation of an impending bubble](). It also comes as OpenAI and Anthropic submit themselves to more scrutiny as they each prepare for what are expected to be historic IPOs. The looming event has only heightened their rivalry, with OpenAI making strides to catch up to the Claude-maker in enterprise sales. Anthropic has cornered the corporate customer market with its coding tools, while OpenAI has lagged with a more broadly consumer-focused model, though its president boasted last week that it now [generates most of its revenue from enterprise sales](). Big picture, in just a few years the AI sector has gone from an asterisk in the tech industry to its shining star — but unless frontier labs like OpenAI can figure out how to make money instead of burning it, investors are going to start asking some hard questions. **More on OpenAI:** [*OpenAI Hears Voters’ Overwhelming Rebuke To Data Centers, Vows to Build More of Them*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]() ## More - [OpenAI Is Suddenly in Trouble]() - [OpenAI’s Fundraising Efforts Sputter and Stall as Investors Refuse to Keep Cutting Checks]() - [OpenAI Says It’s Already Made $100 Million by Stuffing ChatGPT With Ads]() - [OpenAI Massively Cuts Spending Plan as Reality Closes in]() - [OpenAI May Be in Major Trouble Financially]() - [Sam Altman Loses His Cool When Asked About OpenAI’s Minuscule Revenue]() - [OpenAI in Shambles as IPO Looms]() - [OpenAI’s Financial Situation Will Cause a Nauseating Sensation in the Pit of Your Stomach]()