OpenAI plans to focus on “practical adoption” of AI in 2026, according to the company’s chief financial officer, Sarah Friar. The company wants to make sure that the fast progress in AI technology is matched by how widely it is used by people, businesses, and governments in everyday life.
In a recent blog post, Friar explained that the main goal is to help users turn new AI abilities into daily tools. “The priority is closing the gap between what AI now makes possible and how people, companies, and countries are using it day to day,” she wrote. She added that the need for this is especially clear in areas like healthcare, science, and business, where AI can directly improve results. “The opportunity is large and immediate, especially in health, science, and enterprise, where better intelligence translates directly into better outcomes,” Friar said.
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There are already signs that OpenAI is benefiting from this push, reports Business Insider. Data from Ramp, a company that tracks business spending, shows that companies spent more on OpenAI’s AI models in December than ever before. This spending growth was faster than that seen by competitors such as Anthropic and Google.
However, not everyone is fully confident about OpenAI’s financial future. Some investors and analysts worry about the company’s very large spending plans. Over the past year, OpenAI has announced about $1.4 trillion worth of infrastructure deals, mainly linked to building and running data centers. These deals are needed to power advanced AI systems, but they also come with huge costs.
To bring in more money, OpenAI is now looking at new revenue options. One of these is advertising, which the company said it would begin testing. In the past, CEO Sam Altman described ads as a “last resort,” but many expected this step sooner or later.
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Friar responded to concerns about money by pointing to the company’s rapid growth. She said revenue has increased alongside computing power. OpenAI’s available compute rose from 0.2 gigawatts in 2023 to about 1.9 gigawatts last year. During the same time, annual revenue jumped from $2 billion to more than $20 billion, according to the report.
This represents “never-before-seen growth at such scale,” Friar wrote. She added, “And we firmly believe that more compute in these periods would have led to faster customer adoption and monetisation.”