The Wall Street Journal reported on April 27, 2026, that OpenAI has failed to meet key internal revenue and user growth targets in its sprint toward an initial public offering (IPO). The revelation has drawn widespread attention across the artificial intelligence industry and added uncertainty to OpenAI’s valuation prospects.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the newspaper reported that OpenAI’s revenue growth in the first quarter of 2026 fell short of management’s expectations, while the growth rate of active users for its flagship product, ChatGPT, has also slowed. This stands in stark contrast to market expectations of OpenAI’s multi-hundred-billion-dollar valuation.

The Decoder’s analysis pointed out that OpenAI is facing rapidly escalating competitive pressure. Anthropic’s Claude series of models has gained strong traction in the enterprise market, while Google’s Gemini model is rapidly expanding its user base through deep integration with the Google ecosystem. Meanwhile, several open-source model providers are continuously narrowing the performance gap with closed-source models.

Reuters independently confirmed the report and added that OpenAI’s IPO timeline could be affected as a result. The company had previously planned to initiate its listing process within 2026, but if revenue data cannot support its high valuation expectations, the process may be forced to delay.

Notably, OpenAI is still pursuing a new round of financing and continuing to push forward with product commercialization. ChatGPT’s enterprise services, API calls, and custom model business remain its primary revenue sources. However, as AI model costs continue to decline and competition intensifies, its profit margins are under compression.

Analysts believe that the challenges OpenAI currently faces reflect a broader trend in the AI industry: the transition from technological leadership to commercialization capability is not easy. In the context of competitors rapidly catching up, a purely technical moat is no longer sufficient to maintain long-term market dominance.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, The Decoder