OpenAI Could Be IPO-Ready in 2027, Greg Brockman Says

OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman said the company could be ready for an initial public offering in 2027, pointing to growth in enterprise revenue. Speaking at a Wall Street Journal tech conference on Wednesday, he said OpenAI had made significant progress in 2026 and that he felt confident about the business. The company now gets most of its revenue from enterprise customers, after that segment previously accounted for about 30 percent of revenue.

Enterprise revenue drives third-quarter growth

Brockman said OpenAI's trajectory as an enterprise changed over the course of 2026, with the first and second quarters described as "pretty rough." He admitted the company "wasn't even in the conversation" in agentic coding, an area where Anthropic's Claude Code has gained market share. "We had Codex, but no one was talking about it," he said, adding that OpenAI "just kept our heads down and executed." By the third quarter, activity picked up, and OpenAI saw 70% quarterly growth in annualized revenue, which Brockman attributed to the enterprise side of the business doubling. He said the growth was the culmination of investments the company had been making up to that point, not simply the result of something that happened in the quarter itself. Consumer revenue has also been growing, but the enterprise segment has taken off, with a recent partnership with JPMorgan Chase offered as one example of the type of client OpenAI is now winning.

OpenAI says it learned to sell into the enterprise

Brockman said the company learned that its job was to help businesses identify the most important milestones they could achieve with its AI technology, build trust with clients, and demonstrate that it was a reliable partner for the long haul. He said that a year ago OpenAI was perceived as a consumer company, and many companies it spoke with asked whether OpenAI was really committed to the enterprise. "But it's so different today," he said. In response to a question about being IPO-ready next year, Brockman replied, "I think so. Yes." He also said, "We've been very clear this year that we want to go public when we feel is the right time for us," and that he feels extremely good about the business.

Market position against Anthropic

Brockman touted OpenAI's gains in the enterprise market, where rival Anthropic had already made inroads. He said OpenAI is now in a different position than it was a year ago, when it was not even in the conversation around agentic coding. The company has Codex, and its enterprise revenue now makes up the majority of total revenue, according to Brockman.

Sources: TechCrunch