Sarah Friar, CFO of OpenAI, will appear on CNBC’s Squawk Box on August 20, 2025.
CNBC
OpenAI will make 2026 the year of “go-to-market,” the artificial intelligence startup’s financial chief said in a blog on Sunday.
“The priority is to close the gap between what AI is currently enabling and how people, businesses and nations use it every day,” said OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar. “The opportunity is huge and immediate, especially in health, science, and business, where better intelligence directly leads to better outcomes.”
In a blog post, Friar explained how OpenAI is considering a strategy to monetize its own services, such as ChatGPT, while securing the compute needed to power these products, noting that the AI Lab’s revenue will be directly tied to the availability of its technology infrastructure. OpenAI’s computing power increased from 0.2 gigawatts in 2023 to about 1.9 gigawatts in 2025, and the company’s annual revenue run rate similarly increased from $2 billion in 2023 to more than $20 billion last year, Frier said.
“Growth on this scale is unlike anything we have seen before,” she wrote. “And we believe that more compute during this time would have resulted in faster customer adoption and monetization.”
Fryer’s blog was published as OpenAI, and the technology industry’s focus on AI has come under intense scrutiny due to the huge investments needed to build data centers and secure the energy and components needed to run this cutting-edge technology, which has yet to generate much return for investors.
Some of these important deals include agreements between OpenAI and AI chip manufacturers Nvidia Announced in September. Under the deal, Nvidia announced it would commit $100 billion to support AI startups as they build and deploy at least 10 GW of Nvidia systems.
A gigawatt is a unit of electricity, and 10 GW is roughly equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of 8 million U.S. homes, according to a CNBC analysis of Energy Information Administration data.
However, NVIDIA told investors in November that there was “no guarantee” that the agreement with OpenAI would move beyond announcement to the formal contract stage.
“Ensuring world-class computing requires a years-long commitment, and growth will not be completely smooth,” Frier wrote, adding that the system requires discipline.
Three years ago, OpenAI relied on a single compute provider, but now it works with a diverse ecosystem, Frier said.
“In a market where access to computing determines who can scale, we can plan, finance, and deploy capacity with confidence,” she wrote.
OpenAI’s business model should scale with its services, Friar said.
“New economic models will emerge as intelligence moves into scientific research, drug discovery, energy systems, and financial modeling,” she wrote.
The blog comes after OpenAI announced plans last week to begin testing ads for some ChatGPT users in the United States, a move that comes as OpenAI prepares for a possible public rollout this year.
“Monetization should feel native to the experience,” Friar wrote. “If it doesn’t add value, it doesn’t belong.”
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