Sam Altman says OpenAI has entered a new phase of growth, with enterprise adoption accelerating faster than its consumer business for the first time.
In a recent interview with journalist Alex Kantrowitz, the OpenAI chief executive says the company is witnessing massive growth in its enterprise segment with rapid uptake across its API and business offerings.
“We have more than a million enterprise users, but we have absolutely rapid adoption of the API. And the API grew faster for us this year than even ChatGPT.”
Altman says the shift reflects a strategy that deliberately prioritized consumers before moving into enterprise, largely because the technology was not yet mature enough for business use. He adds that winning in consumer created a structural advantage that is now paying off as companies begin adopting OpenAI’s tools at scale.
“We had this clear opportunity to win in consumer. And those are rare and hard to come by. And I think if you win in consumer, it makes it massively easier to win in enterprise. And we are seeing that now.”
Altman says 2025 marked a turning point, with enterprise growth outpacing consumer growth as organizations became more comfortable deploying AI across their operations.
“This was a year where enterprise growth outpaced consumer growth.”
He argues that improvements in model capability and reliability have aligned with rising enterprise readiness, enabling OpenAI to expand its business offering rapidly.
“And given where the models are today, where they will get to next year, we think this is the time where we can build a really significant enterprise business quite rapidly. I think we already have one, but it can grow much more. Companies seem ready for it. The technology seems ready for it.”
Altman points to coding as the most established enterprise use case so far, while noting that adoption is spreading quickly across additional verticals.
“Coding is the biggest example so far, but there are others that are now growing, other verticals that are now growing very quickly. And we’re starting to hear enterprises say, I really just want an AI platform.”
OpenAI’s strong enterprise growth appears to be in line with Altman’s view that the AI giant can outgrow its $1.4 trillion spending commitments in the coming years. The OpenAI CEO said that the firm is “on a very steep growth curve of revenue” and can continue to grow exponentially with increased compute availability.
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