OpenAI is expected to generate more than $1 billion in revenue in the next 12 months

OpenAI is reportedly on track to generate more than $1 billion in revenue over the next 12 months from the sale of AI software and its computing power. According to people familiar with the matter, this is far more than the $200 million revenue forecast the company had previously given to shareholders. Full-year revenue of $1 billion would mean the company, backed by Microsoft Corp (MSFT.US), would generate more than $80 million in monthly revenue, up from just $28 million for all of last year.

Although OpenAI received a $10 billion investment from Microsoft earlier this year, the company's ChatGPT project costs $700,000 per day, which is even higher when combined with the cost of hiring top talent at OpenAI LABS. Some media pointed out that if OpenAI fails to achieve profitability as soon as possible, investors such as Microsoft may stop financial support by the end of 2024, leading to the risk of bankruptcy of the project. Reports indicate that OpenAI's losses doubled to $540 million for the whole of 2022.

At the same time, ChatGPT saw a decline in user visits. After a record 1.9 billion user visits in May this year, the number of visits dropped to 1.7 billion in June and 1.5 billion in July, according to SimilarWeb. However, some analysts believe that ChatGPT is gradually shifting its core position to the API (application programming interface), and the traffic data of SimilarWeb only counts client visits, but does not include the number of people who use ChatGPT through the API.

In addition, OpenAI faces intense competitive pressure. Previously, Microsoft and META (Meta.us) jointly released a new open source large model, Llama 2, and made it available for free and commercial use. According to the analysis, according to the iteration speed between the two generations of Llama, there will soon be an open source large model with performance parameters comparable to GPT-4.

So far, it seems that OpenAI's commercialization process is not smooth. In addition, OpenAI is still far from an initial public offering (IPO), because more than 10 years of operation and $10 billion in revenue are required for IPO companies, and OpenAI's current operating status clearly does not meet this threshold.

On August 17, OpenAI announced on its website that it had acquired a company called Global Illumination. Global Illumination is a company that uses artificial intelligence to build creative tools, infrastructure, and digital experiences. The company's main product is the Open source edition of Minecraft.

"The entire Global Illumination team has joined OpenAI to work on the core products, including ChatGPT," OpenAI said. This is OpenAI's first public acquisition since it was founded in 2015. Some industry analysts said that OpenAI may accelerate the company's earnings through the acquisition. Some market participants believe that OpenAI can push the integration of its artificial intelligence technology and games to a deeper level, create an engaging game experience, attract more players, and may bring certain commercial returns to OpenAI.