The company behind ChatGPT has already taken its first official step toward going public — and if you’ve ever used the chatbot to write an email, plan a trip or settle a debate, this initial public offering (IPO) will affect you one way or another.
But investors hoping to buy shares of OpenAI will probably have to wait a while.
CEO Sam Altman said in September that the company is delaying its IPO while it addresses growing concerns about the safety of increasingly capable AI models. At OpenAI’s DevDay conference, Altman explained that the firm needs “to be able to make confident safety claims” before moving forward with a listing, according to reporting from The Verge.
That’s a notable shift from earlier this year, when the company confidentially filed its S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Reports back then suggested the IPO could make its debut as early as September. A 2027 debut now seems to be the closest possibility based on Altman’s comments.
Regardless of when exactly the OpenAI IPO lands, here’s what you should know before reaching for your brokerage app.
How OpenAI’s IPO could affect ChatGPT
OpenAI faces a costly problem: Building and maintaining artificial intelligence models requires enormous computing infrastructure. The company has made significant data-center spending commitments that will require substantially more revenue to support.
Going public would give OpenAI access to a much larger pool of capital because it would open the company to public stock markets instead of relying mainly on private investors, venture capital firms or internal cash flow. But it also means the company would have to answer to shareholders, which has implications beyond Wall Street.
When consumer tech companies go public, the pressure to grow revenue and hit quarterly targets can reshape the products people rely on. Netflix, for example, raised subscription prices repeatedly and cracked down on password sharing starting in 2022, while Reddit expanded monetization efforts around its API and advertising business ahead of its IPO in March 2024.
ChatGPT currently offers a free tier alongside its paid plans, but as a public company, OpenAI will face scrutiny over whether it’s doing enough to monetize its over 1.2 billion weekly active users — of which only around 50 million are paid subscribers. That could result in changes to what’s free and what’s paywalled.
What is OpenAI worth?
OpenAI said in March that it closed a $122 billion funding round where it was valued at $852 billion, making it one of the most anticipated IPOs in years. For context, that’s larger than the market cap of most Fortune 500 companies.
Its potential valuation has climbed considerably since then. The company is now discussing another private funding round of at least $30 billion at a valuation of roughly $1.4 trillion. The talks are still preliminary, but Bloomberg reported the new funding could serve as bridge financing while OpenAI delays its IPO.
These numbers matter for investors because they set expectations. Retail investors buying OpenAI stock once it goes public will likely be paying a premium on top of an already enormous valuation, and the company has yet to prove it can generate profits at a scale that justifies that valuation.
Is OpenAI profitable?
OpenAI revenue has grown sharply since it first announced its IPO. The company’s annual recurring revenue is nearing $70 billion, according to Axios; that’s up more than 70% since the beginning of the third quarter.
But rapid growth in revenue doesn’t mean OpenAI is profitable. Its net losses reportedly climbed to $42 billion in 2025, and the company doesn’t expect to reach profitability until around 2030.
OpenAI also faces growing competition from Anthropic, the makers of Claude, which generated $11.5 billion in revenue in the second quarter of 2026 and also filed confidential IPO paperwork. More recent reporting suggests that pace has since climbed above $100 billion annually.
What investors should consider before an OpenAI IPO
Whether OpenAI is worth investing in will largely depend on your risk tolerance. High-profile tech IPOs have a mixed track record: Uber, Lyft and Rivian, for example, all debuted with enormous valuations and delivered rocky early returns for investors who bought in at launch.
OpenAI also has an unusual corporate history. It launched as a nonprofit research lab, converted to a for-profit structure to raise capital and only recently completed the structural changes legally necessary to pursue a public offering.
A lawsuit filed by co-founder Elon Musk challenging that conversion went to trial this year. A jury sided with OpenAI on technical grounds and the judge dismissed Musk’s claims, clearing what had been the biggest legal obstacle to going public. (Musk separately launched a major IPO of his own for SpaceX.)
The S-1, once public, will be the most important document for investors to read before making any decision. Until then, the company’s targeted valuation is mostly just a number — not a verdict on what OpenAI is actually worth to shareholders.
How to invest in OpenAI before its IPO
Retail investors can’t directly buy the company’s stock yet because it’s still private. But there are several ways to invest in OpenAI indirectly.
Microsoft is the clearest example. The software giant has invested heavily in OpenAI and built its technology into products like Azure, Bing and Copilot. Nvidia has also benefited from rising demand because companies like OpenAI rely on its chips to train and run AI models at scale.
Investors can also gain exposure through ETFs that hold large positions in AI-focused companies, including major tech firms tied to the growth of generative AI infrastructure.
Some private-market platforms occasionally offer access to pre-IPO OpenAI shares, though those opportunities are generally limited to accredited investors (people or institutions that meet certain income or wealth requirements set by financial regulators) and often come with high minimum investments and added risk.
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