OpenAI's ARR is rapidly closing the gap with Anthropic—this is probably the most noteworthy news today. Check out CNBC's report: OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar explicitly stated during an internal staff meeting on Wednesday that July's annualized recurring revenue (ARR) has already surpassed the total for the entire second quarter (Q2). How should we interpret this? 1. According to TickerTrenda's data, OpenAI's ARR for Q2: - End of April: $28.8 billion - End of May: $33 billion - End of June: $37.3 billion The total ARR growth for Q2 was $11.4 billion. Breaking it down into monthly revenue (calculated as ARR/12): - April: $2.4 billion - May: $2.75 billion - June: $3.1 billion The cumulative revenue for April, May, and June was $8.25 billion. 2. OpenAI's CFO mentioned that July's net new ARR revenue exceeded the total net new ARR growth for the entire second quarter (same comparison basis, both are net increases). This leads to two possible interpretations: 1) First interpretation: July's net new ARR revenue exceeded the total net new ARR growth for Q2 (same comparison basis, both are net increases). OpenAI's total ARR growth for Q2 was approximately $11.4 billion. By July, OpenAI's ARR had already surged to over $50 billion, rapidly catching up to Anthropic. 2) Second interpretation: July's single-month revenue exceeded the combined revenue of Q2's three months. As calculated above, Q2's cumulative revenue for April, May, and June was $8.25 billion. This would mean July's single-month revenue surpassed $8.25 billion, and annualized ARR has exceeded $100 billion—which seems almost unbelievable. Even with a conservative estimate based on the first interpretation, it still indicates that OpenAI is significantly narrowing the revenue gap with Anthropic. 3. The reasons for this rapid growth include: 1) The release of the GPT-5.6 series models. 2) The launch of the new enterprise solution, ChatGPT Work. 3) Continued growth in adoption of the AI coding tool Codex. Previously, this post https://(x.com)/thsottiaux/status/2079609157934886975?s=46&t=k6rimWsEbo2D2tXolYcM-A also revealed that Codex and Work users saw a massive surge in July.