OpenAI, behind ChatGPT, could soon be worth $80 to $90 billion

OpenAI, the California startup that created ChatGPT, plans to sell shares, a move that would value it at $80 billion, or even $90 billion, triple its value from a year ago, according to an article in Wall Street Journal published on Tuesday, September 26.

Sam Altman’s artificial intelligence (AI) company became a Silicon Valley star with the November 2022 launch of ChatGPT, a generative AI interface whose success popularized the technology.

Several billion in 2024

According to the business newspaper, the start-up told investors that it expected to turn over a billion dollars this year and several billion in 2024.

Last February, OpenAI was valued at $29 billion, “while it is estimated to lose $500 million” in 2022, said Wayne Hu, partner at private equity firm SignalFire.

Since then, the impressive capabilities of the latest generation of AI, capable of producing text, images, codes or sounds through a simple request in everyday language, have conquered millions of people and the reputation of this company has skyrocketed. Microsoft has invested $10 billion in the startup. The IT giant owns 49% of OpenAI shares, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Above all, the Windows group, Microsoft 360 (Word, Excel, etc.) and Bing (search engine) have integrated numerous generative AI functionalities into their software, to transform them into “co-pilots” of users.

Emulators in technology

Google, which had already developed the necessary computer systems internally, did the same. And from large companies to startups, all of Silicon Valley is developing new use cases around this AI.

OpenAI has also strengthened these services. Subscribers to ChatGPT Plus, the paid version of the chatbot ($20 per month), will soon be able to “chat” with the interface or even send it images.

The startup also sells licenses to companies that want to use its language model to create their own generative AI applications.

According Wall Street JournalOpenAI should allow its employees to sell their shares instead of organizing a fundraiser.

On Monday, September 25, Amazon announced an investment of up to four billion dollars in Anthropic, a rival to OpenAI. He developed his own chatbot, Claude, following ethical principles considered stricter than those applied to ChatGPT.