OpenAI Misses Revenue and User Growth Targets

According to the Wall Street Journal, OpenAI missed its internal targets for new users and revenue, and the company's ChatGPT chatbot failed to reach a target of one billion weekly active users by the end of 2025, the WSJ reports. The Wall Street Journal reports that Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar told other company leaders she is worried the company may not be able to pay for future computing contracts if revenue does not grow fast enough, according to people familiar with the matter. The WSJ also reports that the company's board has questioned the level of spending on large data centers amid slowing growth.

Companies carrying large fixed costs for compute and datacenter capacity typically face pressure when user growth or revenue slow. In comparable cases, boards and finance leads have scrutinized capital intensity, contract terms with cloud and hardware providers, and unit economics for paid products. For practitioners, that dynamic often affects pricing experiments, tiered feature rollouts, and engineering prioritization between cost efficiency and feature velocity.

Reporting places these developments against a backdrop of private companies preparing for public markets; IPO timing and valuation are highly sensitive to demonstrable revenue growth and sustainable margins. Public disclosures or regulatory filings normally provide the clearest, verifiable view of revenue trajectories and capital commitments.

Observers should track formal disclosures (for example, any public SEC filings), quarterly revenue and MAU metrics, commentary from named executives or board members in filings, and reported changes to capital-expenditure or compute-contract commitments. These indicators will clarify the scale of any funding or operating gaps described in the WSJ reporting.