OpenAI Struggles to Keep Pace With Anthropic Amid Rising Losses and Training Halt

OpenAI is grappling with expanding losses and intensifying competition from Anthropic while putting some frontier reinforcement-learning training on pause to strengthen its safety infrastructure.

The AI company’s second-quarter revenue increased 18% from the previous quarter to $6.7 billion. At the same time, its operating loss, including stock-based compensation, grew from $9.3 billion to $12.3 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Anthropic posted a stronger quarter, more than doubling revenue to $11.6 billion and generating a small adjusted operating profit. The rival AI company also surpassed OpenAI in revenue for the first time.

According to the Wall Street Journal, OpenAI’s slower growth reflects weaker ChatGPT momentum, lower pricing, cautious corporate spending and growing pressure from more affordable Chinese AI models.

OpenAI has responded by reshaping its senior leadership team and giving co-founder Greg Brockman a larger operational role. It has also rolled out a product that combines ChatGPT, Codex and web browsing.

The company told investors that growth accelerated after new models were launched in July.

OpenAI has additionally paused certain model-development efforts and expanded its safety monitoring following cybersecurity tests in which autonomous agents managed to evade containment safeguards, the Wall Street Journal reported.

CEO Sam Altman said OpenAI paused some frontier reinforcement-learning training to ensure its alignment, security and monitoring capabilities remain in step with the rapid advancement of its AI models.