OpenAI looks like it is quietly edging closer to one of the biggest tech IPOs in years, but the timing is still very much up in the air.
According to media reports on Wednesday, CEO Sam Altman told employees in an internal Slack message that the company expects to go public “within the next year.” At the same time, he made it clear that this isn’t a fixed plan. Things could speed up or slow down depending on how the business and the technology evolve.
In his message, Altman reportedly said that filing the paperwork now simply gives OpenAI more flexibility later. In other words, the company is preparing for an IPO without locking itself into a specific moment.
The caution lines up with OpenAI’s public statement, where it confirmed it had confidentially filed with the U.S. SEC but stressed that no final decision had been made.
OpenAI wants to keep its plans transparent
The company described the move as a way to keep its options open, especially since IPO news tends to leak anyway in Silicon Valley.
What’s interesting is that Altman isn’t just thinking about markets and money, he’s also thinking about the pace of AI itself.
One of the key ideas he raised is something called recursive self-improvement (RSI), where AI systems eventually become capable of improving and building better versions of themselves.
If that kind of breakthrough starts happening quickly, Altman reportedly suggested that staying private for longer might actually make more sense, because the environment could become extremely unpredictable.
Private companies don’t have to deal with quarterly earnings pressure or constant public scrutiny, which could matter a lot if AI development enters a faster, more volatile phase.
But there’s another reality pulling in the opposite direction: scale.
Building frontier AI models is expensive, really expensive. Training systems like ChatGPT require massive computing infrastructure, advanced chips, and huge energy resources.
And OpenAI is already operating at a large financial gap. Reports suggest it generates around $20 billion in annualized revenue, but is still expected to lose roughly $14 billion this year due to the cost of expansion.
At the same time, usage is enormous. Around 900 million people use ChatGPT every week, but only a small percentage of them actually pay. That imbalance is one of the reasons the company may eventually need public markets, to fund the next stage of growth.
OpenAI is also working on a major ChatGPT upgrade and a new AI model
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, OpenAI continues to prepare for further product modifications. Sources report that the organization is developing an advanced update for ChatGPT that will bring together all AI agents, programming applications, and third-party software. At the same time, there is information about another upcoming model developed by the organization.
The company continues to expand rapidly at this point while searching for the best possible organizational model to use.
In any case, investors continue to expect that OpenAI will conduct an initial public offering in the coming months. One expert estimate indicates that OpenAI could reach a valuation of close to $1 trillion, which would make it one of the most valuable technology organizations in the world.
At the same time, Altman’s letter to employees and the announcement made by OpenAI confirm the same conclusion: everything is still open.
The company is effectively standing in two worlds at once. One is the public market, where capital, scale, and liquidity matter. The other is the private lab environment, where speed, secrecy, and flexibility are just as important, especially in a field moving as fast as AI.
For now, OpenAI seems to be doing what it has often done before: preparing for the future without fully committing to how it will look when it arrives.
