New Data Show OpenAI’s Viral Growth Among Startups. Can It Last?

There’s no doubt large language model leader OpenAI and rivals like Anthropic are quickly expanding revenue, judging from reports in The Information in the past few weeks. (The latest data point from my colleague Amir today reveals that OpenAI is generating revenue at a pace of $1.3 billion a year, up 30% from the $1 billion-a-year pace we reported this summer.) 

But new data from Kruze Consulting, a finance and HR consulting firm, points to at least one challenge these companies will face: getting their customers to stick around.

Kruze’s analysis of expenditures by more than 800 venture-backed startups found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the percentage of companies using OpenAI products has risen to 57% in September from 3% in November last year, when ChatGPT launched. But when you dig a bit deeper, you see a different picture.

While the 800 companies spent an average of $2,600 on OpenAI each month, the median spend was just $80, enough for a few ChatGPT+ subscriptions. That difference suggests a few power users skewed the average figure, and that most are just experimenting or don’t need much from OpenAI. (Startups in the analysis have raised $8 million in capital on average.)