During a recent appearance on CNBC's "Squawk Box" at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Sarah Friar, OpenAI's Chief Financial Officer, addressed investors amidst significant changes in the company's leadership. Speaking on January 21, 2026, Friar highlighted a major shift in revenue dynamics, revealing that enterprise business has now overtaken the consumer-focused ChatGPT segment in terms of revenue generation.
“Earlier this year, we had a 60-40 split, but enterprise has surged beyond our projections, and the lines have now reversed,” Friar remarked, as reported by an unnamed source present at the meeting. “Enterprise now constitutes the majority of our income.”
This evolution in revenue composition exceeds OpenAI's prior estimates, which had anticipated that both segments would equalize by the end of 2026. CNBC confirmed that the company's annualized revenue run rate has reached an impressive $40 billion, a figure initially reported by Bloomberg.
In July, OpenAI's revenue run rate saw a remarkable 20% increase month-over-month, with business customer growth accelerating even more, climbing 32%, according to internal slides reviewed by CNBC.
The meeting, initially scheduled before the week’s executive shakeups, included current shareholders and followed the unexpected resignation of revenue chief Denise Dresser, who stepped down after only eight months. Dresser, a former Salesforce executive who also led Slack, announced her departure on LinkedIn to explore new opportunities.
Additionally, veteran executive Brad Lightcap confirmed he would be leaving the company after an eight-year tenure to pursue new ventures.
Greg Brockman, OpenAI's president and one of its co-founders, participated in the meeting, expressing gratitude to Dresser for her role in establishing the enterprise sector. He announced her successor, Dali Rajic, who previously served as COO at the cybersecurity company Wiz, now under Google's umbrella. Rajic was reportedly introduced to OpenAI through Thrive founder Josh Kushner.
During the meeting, executives addressed concerns regarding the emergence of open-source models from Chinese competitors. Brockman dismissed these competitive threats, clarifying common misconceptions about the cost-effectiveness of open source alternatives. The leadership team also fielded inquiries about a potential initial public offering, but indicated they couldn't disclose details due to a confidential SEC filing.
Friar reiterated the company's impressive revenue growth, noting a shift in customer behavior away from extensive AI spending without tangible outputs—a trend she referred to as "tokenmaxxing." Instead, she indicated a movement toward optimizing costs for intelligence output. She also highlighted a new AI model that boasts a 54% increase in efficiency for coding tasks, coupled with recent price reductions across their offerings.
Furthermore, Friar mentioned that OpenAI has made significant progress in advertising, with the ad segment nearing a $1 billion run rate after the company began testing ads in ChatGPT back in February.
