OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar says the tech titan’s revenue and user growth are compounding at a pace that’s never been witnessed before.
In a new company update, Friar says OpenAI’s growth is a flywheel, where compute investment fuels model capability, capability drives adoption, and adoption funds the next wave of infrastructure.
“Both our Weekly Active User (WAU) and Daily Active User (DAU) figures continue to produce all-time highs. This growth is driven by a flywheel across compute, frontier research, products, and monetization. Investment in compute powers leading-edge research and step-change gains in model capability. Stronger models unlock better products and broader adoption of the OpenAI platform. Adoption drives revenue, and revenue funds the next wave of compute and innovation. The cycle compounds.”
She says the link between compute availability and revenue growth has been direct and measurable over the past three years.
“Looking back on the past three years, our ability to serve customers—as measured by revenue—directly tracks available compute: Compute grew 3X year over year or 9.5X from 2023 to 2025: 0.2 GW in 2023, 0.6 GW in 2024, and ~1.9 GW in 2025. While revenue followed the same curve growing 3X year over year, or 10X from 2023 to 2025: $2 billion ARR (annual recurring revenue) in 2023, $6 billion in 2024, and $20 billion + in 2025. This is never-before-seen growth at such scale. And we firmly believe that more compute in these periods would have led to faster customer adoption and monetization.”
Friar says compute has emerged as the scarcest and most strategic resource in AI, noting that OpenAI has teamed up with multiple compute providers to address the constraint.
“Compute is the scarcest resource in AI. Three years ago, we relied on a single compute provider. Today, we are working with providers across a diversified ecosystem. That shift gives us resilience and, critically, compute certainty. We can plan, finance, and deploy capacity with confidence in a market where access to compute defines who can scale. This turns compute from a fixed constraint into an actively managed portfolio.”
Last month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that compute has been limiting the ChatGPT creator’s ability to grow its revenue, driving the firm to go on a data center spending spree.
Lastly, Friar says that for 2026, OpenAI is putting practical adoption at the top of its priorities list.
“That discipline sets up our focus for 2026: practical adoption. The priority is closing the gap between what AI now makes possible and how people, companies, and countries are using it day to day. The opportunity is large and immediate, especially in health, science, and enterprise, where better intelligence translates directly into better outcomes.”
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