OpenAI Revenue Definition Gap

OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue is nearly $50 billion. The figure signaled weeks earlier was about $68 billion to $70 billion. Nothing collapsed. The definition changed.

The higher number counted gross revenue from partners. The lower one counts only OpenAI's share. Anthropic reports it the other way, including sales through cloud partners like AWS and Google Cloud. Two companies, two rulebooks, one headline number.

Annualized revenue adds a second wrinkle: it typically extrapolates a single month across twelve. A strong month and a loose definition can put roughly $20 billion between two versions of the same company.

My read: AI revenue figures are becoming the new "adjusted EBITDA." Useful for direction, unreliable for comparison until you know exactly what was counted.

For anyone benchmarking AI vendors, partnering with one, or investing in the category, the diligence question is no longer how big the number is. It is what is inside it.

When you evaluate an AI company's growth claims, what is the first definition you check?