OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, soon to be valued at between $80 and $90 billion

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

According to the economic daily, the start-up told investors that it was counting on a billion dollars in turnover this year, and several billion in 2024. Last February, OpenAI was valued at 29 billion dollars, “while it is estimated that it lost $500 million” in 2022, noted Wayne Hu, partner at the private equity firm SignalFire.

Also readHow can artificial intelligence help you on a daily basis?

Since then, the impressive capabilities of the latest generation of AI, capable of producing text, images, code or sounds upon simple request in everyday language, have won over millions of people, and the reputation of this company has exploded. Microsoft has invested $10 billion in the start-up. The IT giant owns 49% of OpenAI shares, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Above all, the group of Windows, Microsoft 360 (Word, Excel, etc.) and Bing (search engine) have integrated numerous generative AI functionalities into their software, to transform them into “co-pilots” for users.

Google, which had already developed the necessary IT systems in-house, followed suit. And from large companies to start-ups, the whole 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 “converse” with the interface or even submit images to it. The start-up also sells licenses to companies that want to use its language model to build their own generative AI applications.

According to the WSJ, OpenAI should allow its employees to sell their shares rather than organize a fundraising. On Monday, Amazon announced an investment of up to four billion dollars in Anthropic, a rival to OpenAI. She developed her own chatbot, Claude, following ethical principles deemed stricter than those applied to ChatGPT.