OpenAI revenue hits $10B in Q3, but adjusted loss reaches $10.9B

Revenue up 50%, and so is the loss

According to Olhar Digital, in a report dated November 10, 2026, OpenAI grew its revenue by about 50% between the second and third quarters of the year, reaching roughly $10 billion, or 54 billion reais at the outlet's conversion. The figures come from documents presented to investors on Tuesday, November 10, and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. They are private, unaudited data that the company itself has not published, so caution is warranted.

The point that gives the article its headline is the loss. Adjusted operating loss rose from $10.1 billion in the second quarter to $10.9 billion in the third, or about 58.9 billion reais. As a share of revenue, the adjusted operating margin improved from -150% to -109%. In other words, the company lost about $1.09 for every dollar of revenue in the quarter, against $1.50 in the previous one.

The headline has to be read precisely. The 59 billion reais is neither an annual loss nor a net loss: it is the operating loss of a single quarter, calculated without stock-based compensation, which came to $2.6 billion (14 billion reais) in the period. If that were added back in, the quarter's operating loss would be close to $13.5 billion, our own estimate, which does not appear in the sources.

The trajectory since the start of 2026

To put the third quarter in context, it helps to gather what the press had already published about earlier periods. The figures below come from different reports and from calculation methods that are not always identical:

• First quarter of 2026: $5.7 billion in revenue and a $9.3 billion operating loss, according to SiliconANGLE.
• Second quarter: $6.7 billion in revenue, up 18% on the previous quarter, and a $12.3 billion operating loss, according to SiliconANGLE, citing the Wall Street Journal.
• Third quarter: about $10 billion in revenue and a $10.9 billion adjusted operating loss, according to Olhar Digital.
• Third quarter of 2025, for reference: $3.9 billion in revenue and an operating margin of -97%, according to Olhar Digital.

Note that the second-quarter loss ($12.3 billion) probably includes stock-based compensation, while the third-quarter one ($10.9 billion) excludes it, so the two are not directly comparable. The like-for-like comparison available is the adjusted margin: -150% versus -109%.

Anthropic, the yardstick

Olhar Digital points out that rival Anthropic, maker of Claude, reported $17 billion in third-quarter revenue (about 91.8 billion reais), with an operating loss of $567 million that already counts stock-based compensation. In the second quarter, according to SiliconANGLE, Anthropic had earned $11.6 billion and posted a small operating profit of $559 million. Anthropic overtook OpenAI in revenue early in the year, helped in part by Claude Code.

One important caveat: neither company is publicly listed, and SiliconANGLE quotes analyst Holger Mueller of Constellation Research, who says both companies' numbers may not be fully accurate because the calculation methods are not disclosed. OpenAI president Greg Brockman acknowledged that the first two quarters were difficult and described the third this way:

Extraordinary acceleration.

Subscribers, prices and the IPO

According to the documents, about 100 million people paid for some ChatGPT service, or 8.5% of weekly active users, a modest gain on the previous quarter. OpenAI began showing ads in ChatGPT this year but has not disclosed results for that business. The company also cut prices on its latest models to attract corporate customers and hired Dali Rajic as chief revenue officer.

On funding, Olhar Digital reports that the latest round raised less than half of the $30 billion target (about 162 billion reais) and that the company is still looking for investors. OpenAI's IPO is expected in 2027, according to the same report. Anthropic, for its part, is working with a valuation of $1.33 trillion for its own initial public offering, according to the Journal.

What this changes for a Brazilian company

For a Brazilian company that uses or is evaluating OpenAI's AI, the useful reading is not the size of the loss but what it signals about pricing and strategy. The price cuts on new models and the race for the corporate market suggest room to negotiate: it is worth asking for comparative offers from OpenAI, Anthropic and open models before renewing contracts.

A supplier that burns cash and fights for market share can change prices, plans and products quickly. Avoid an architecture tied to a single vendor: keep an integration layer able to swap models, record your prompts and quality evaluations, and review the clauses on continuity and data use. Remember too that prices are in dollars: with the exchange rate around 5.4 reais per dollar, as in Olhar Digital's conversion, currency swings weigh as much as the list price.

Finally, treat these numbers as indications rather than financial statements, since they were presented to investors and are unaudited. It is worth following the possible IPO expected in 2027, which will require verified data.