OpenAI LP is reportedly on track to generate more than $1 billion in annual revenue thanks to strong demand for its artificial intelligence models.

The Information and Bloomberg reported the company’s sales trajectory on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. It’s believed that OpenAI currently generates $80 million in monthly revenue per month. According to The Information, the company’s revenue over the next 12 months is expected to surpass $1 billion.

That figure is a significant jump from the $28 million in sales OpenAI is said to have logged last year. In May, The Information reported that the company’s annual revenue run rate increased to “hundreds of millions of dollars” within weeks of ChatGPT Plus launching. ChatGPT Plus is a paid version of the company’s chatbot that offers faster response times and other benefits.

OpenAI is reportedly “far ahead of revenue projections” it has shared with shareholders. The launch of the company’s ChatGPT Enterprise service earlier this week could potentially further accelerate its sales momentum.

ChatGPT Enterprise generates responses faster than ChatGPT Plus and allows users to include more data in their prompts. It also offers features for administrators, including cybersecurity controls. Those controls ease tasks such as provisioning user accounts and managing login requests.

OpenAI recently detailed that employees at more than 80% of the Fortune 500 have signed up for ChatGPT. This points to strong interest in the technology among the large organizations that the new ChatGPT Enterprise service targets. After announcing the service on Monday, OpenAI said that it’s “onboarding as many enterprises as we can over the next few weeks.”

In the longer term, OpenAI’s revenue could receive another boost from a set of new ChatGPT features it’s currently developing. The company is working on automation tools geared toward specific use cases such as marketing, sales and customer support. It’s also developing a third paid edition of its chatbot, ChatGPT Business, that will target smaller organizations than ChatGPT Enterprise.

OpenAI’s losses reportedly doubled to $540 million last year. Its expenses could increase further as ChatGPT usage grows. According to one estimate, the chatbot incurs $700,000 worth of infrastructure costs per day.

The impact of ChatGPT’s infrastructure requirements on OpenAI’s profitability could be partly mitigated by its partnership with Microsoft Corp. As part of the partnership, the tech giant has built “multiple supercomputing systems powered by Azure” to run OpenAI’s AI models. After Microsoft invested $10 billion in the AI developer earlier this year, it said that it would increase those supercomputing investments.

OpenAI was reportedly valued at between $27 billion and $29 billion in April. The company’s rapidly growing revenue could help it secure a higher valuation the next time it raises funding. According to a May report, OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman had suggested that OpenAI would have to raise billions of dollars in additional funding to support its long-term AI development roadmap. 

Image: OpenAI