OpenAI and Anthropic Revenue Accounting Differences Worry Investors

Bloomberg reported on October 10 that the annualized revenue figures of OpenAI and Anthropic cannot be compared directly because the two companies use different accounting methods. Anthropic counts the full sales generated through cloud partners such as Amazon as revenue, while OpenAI counts only the net share it receives from partners including Microsoft. According to the report, this means OpenAI's figure may look significantly lower on paper than Anthropic's, without necessarily indicating that its actual business is smaller.

The numbers at issue are these: OpenAI expects annualized revenue to reach or exceed $70 billion by the end of the year, while Anthropic announced in July that its annualized revenue had already reached $65 billion. Bloomberg also previously reported that OpenAI's current annualized revenue is about $50 billion, below the $70 billion cited by some media outlets, though the company expects to approach the higher figure by year-end.

The accounting gap has had a real market impact. The report says tech stocks fell on Thursday, partly because investors tried to adjust OpenAI's figure into a basis comparable with Anthropic's and arrived at a lower estimate, fueling concerns about OpenAI's revenue growth. The report notes that with neither company publishing standardized financial statements, annualized revenue has become a key gauge for whether the trillion-dollar AI boom can be delivered, yet it is also a deeply flawed metric. The situation currently rests here: the difference in accounting methods has been disclosed, the market has reacted, and neither company has released standardized financial statements.