OpenAI kicked off an AI revolution with DALL-E and ChatGPT, making the organization the epicenter of the artificial intelligence boom. Led by CEO Sam Altman, OpenAI became a story unto itself when Altman was briefly fired and then brought back after pressure from staff and Microsoft, an investor and close partner.
OpenAI pulled in $4.3 billion in sales in the first half of 2025, The Information reports. That’s up 16 percent from the same time last year — but high running costs mean it burnt through $2.5 billion. Big bills loom, too, with the company expecting to burn $115 billion by 2030.
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Users of OpenAI’s chatbot can now buy that last-minute birthday gift for a friend via Etsy without leaving ChatGPT. Instant Checkouts powered by OpenAI’s new “Agentic commerce protocol” are free for users, but merchants need to pay a fee (of unspecified amount, per the WSJ) to complete the order.
A new Agent Mode comes to Office apps today, alongside an Office Agent in Copilot chat.
The California governor, who is already angling for a presidential run, has a stack of AI regulation bills he can veto before October 12th. Newsom has a slew of tech donors — and may want more tech money for a presidential run. OpenAI is also staffed up with Newsom-affiliated operators. So will Newsom sign the bills?
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Current AI spending means the industry needs $2 trillion in annual revenue by 2030, according to estimates from Bain & Co. That’s “more than five times the size of the entire global subscription software market,” write Eliot Brown and Robbie Whelan. But there’s a plan: 1. Build data centers. 2. ???? 3. Profit. Anyway, I’ve been wondering about this for a while now.
AI firms are now working with weapons makers and the military. Safety expert Heidy Khlaaf breaks down what that means.
including that the company is looking for a leader to help bring ads to ChatGPT. I also saw an internal memo from Sam Altman talking about the importance of Stargate. In it, he writes: “We’ve already invested hundreds of billions of dollars, and doing this right will cost trillions.”
[Sources]
OpenAI said in a blog post that it would “put Stargate ahead of schedule to secure full $500 billion, 10-gigawatt commitment by end of 2025.” The news comes one day after the company announced a strategic partnership with Nvidia, which will invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI as it builds and deploys “at least 10 gigawatts of AI datacenters with NVIDIA systems.”
OpenAI chief Sam Altman teased a bevy of pricey, energy-intensive new features on the horizon. So costly, in fact, that only those signed on to ChatGPT’s $200-a-month Pro plan will be able to use them and even then they may have to pay an extra fee. Altman assures us they’re working to bring the costs down ASAP.
OpenAI chief Sam Altman said the company will be rolling out updates to the chatbot’s personalization page in the “next couple of days.” The update will bring previously disconnected features like “custom instructions” and communication preferences that can make life easier under one heading.
OpenAI and the Mets are partnering on a bizarre promotion involving a custom pin “powered by ChatGPT”, an AI-generated Citi Field guide and custom portraits from a ChatGPT photo booth. Hey, maybe GPT-4o will hallucinate the Mets winning a game and let fans dream for a bit.
Yao Shunyu left OpenAI for the Chinese gaming and messaging company, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. It’s yet another sign of how the AI talent wars are intensifying — both stateside and between the U.S. and China.
The OpenAI chairman, now working on AI agents at his new startup Sierra, on why he’s all in on AI.
The feature will stick around beyond the announced 30-day sunset after receiving feedback that it is “special to many,” Nick Turley, head of ChatGPT, wrote on X. Last month, OpenAI was blasted for removing the popular 4o model, a decision that Turley told The Verge “was a miss”.
The CEO of Khan Academy and guest host Hank Green on online education and what AI assistants can really do for learning.
They’ll be joining OpenAI’s Codex team, which is working on the company’s AI coding assistant. “Building a ‘Cursor for Xcode’ sounded crazy, but we managed to do it anyway,” Alex founder Daniel Edrisian wrote in a post on X, adding, “And, over time, we built the best coding agent for iOS & MacOS apps ... It is an honor to continue that work at a much bigger scale at OpenAI.”
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Its OpenAI Jobs Platform is a hiring platform that will “use AI to help find the perfect matches between what companies need and what workers can offer,” according to a blog post by Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of Applications. It’ll also be designed to help “local governments find the AI talent they need to better serve their constituents,” per the post, and offer “certifications for different levels of AI fluency” via the OpenAI Academy.
Why the EyesOnOpenAI coalition is pushing the AI giant to help humanity instead of chase profits.
