OpenAI is making a dramatic pivot away from consumer-facing AI products toward business-focused tools, betting that corporate customers are the key to profitability. The shift marks a significant departure from the company's earlier strategy of promoting consumer features like AI video generation and even adult content partnerships. Now, OpenAI is channeling resources into a new enterprise model codenamed Spud, designed specifically for high-value professional work .

Why Is OpenAI Abandoning Consumer Products?

The answer comes down to money. OpenAI boasts over 900 million weekly users of ChatGPT, but approximately 95% of them do not pay anything for the service . While those free users build habits and reliance on the platform, they also consume expensive computing resources without generating revenue. The company, valued at $852 billion, is losing more money than it makes, creating urgency to find a sustainable business model before going public .

Sarah Friar, OpenAI's chief financial officer, explained the difficult decision to abandon projects like Sora, the AI video generator. "I think it was a little heartbreaking, but we're like, OK, it's not the main event right now," she stated. "We need to make sure that our new model that's coming has enough compute" . The company is redirecting computing resources away from consumer experiments toward enterprise products that can command premium pricing.

Sarah Friar, OpenAI's chief financial officer

"I think it was a little heartbreaking, but we're like, OK, it's not the main event right now. We need to make sure that our new model that's coming has enough compute," said Sarah Friar.

Sarah Friar, Chief Financial Officer at OpenAI

How Fast Is OpenAI's Business Revenue Growing?

The numbers tell a compelling story. When Friar joined OpenAI in 2024 as chief financial officer, business customers accounted for roughly 20% of the company's revenue. That figure has now jumped to 40%, and the company expects business revenue to reach 50% of total sales by the end of the year . This acceleration reflects both the growing demand for enterprise AI tools and OpenAI's deliberate decision to prioritize corporate deals over consumer engagement.

To accelerate this shift, OpenAI hired Denise Dresser, the former CEO of Slack, as its first chief revenue officer three months ago . Dresser has been meeting directly with corporate leaders to position OpenAI as the go-to platform for deploying AI agents that automate computer-based job tasks. She emphasized the urgency of the moment, noting that companies have moved beyond experimentation into actual production use of AI tools.

"It's really clear to me that companies are past the experimentation phase and they're into using AI to do real work. Leaders at companies are recognizing that AI is probably the most consequential shift of their lifetime," said Denise Dresser.

Denise Dresser, Chief Revenue Officer at OpenAI

What Is Spud, and How Does It Compare to Competitors?

OpenAI's new enterprise model, codenamed Spud, is being positioned as the company's "smartest model yet." According to the company, Spud offers stronger reasoning, better understanding of intent and dependencies, improved follow-through, and more reliable output in production environments . The model is OpenAI's direct answer to Anthropic's new Claude Mythos, which Anthropic claims is so capable that the company is limiting access to select customers due to concerns about its ability to surpass human experts in cybersecurity vulnerability detection .

The competition between OpenAI and Anthropic has intensified dramatically. Anthropic, valued at $380 billion, has reported annualized revenues of $30 billion, a higher figure than OpenAI has publicly disclosed . However, OpenAI executives argue that Anthropic's number is inflated because it does not account for revenue the company must share with cloud computing providers Amazon and Google. Regardless, the gap is narrowing, with researchers noting that Anthropic is growing significantly faster than OpenAI .

Steps to Understanding OpenAI's New Business Strategy

• Revenue Shift: Business customers now represent 40% of OpenAI's revenue, up from 20% when CFO Sarah Friar was hired in 2024, with expectations to reach 50% by year-end.
• Product Abandonment: OpenAI has discontinued consumer initiatives like Sora, the AI video generator, to redirect computing resources toward enterprise-focused tools.
• Leadership Changes: The hiring of Denise Dresser as chief revenue officer signals a laser focus on corporate partnerships and workplace AI deployment.
• Model Development: The new Spud model is designed specifically for high-value professional work, competing directly with Anthropic's Claude Mythos in the enterprise market.

What Does This Mean for the Future of AI Competition?

The strategic shift reflects a broader reality in the AI industry: consumer adoption alone cannot sustain the enormous computational costs required to develop and operate large language models (LLMs), which are AI systems trained on vast amounts of text data to understand and generate human language. Both OpenAI and Anthropic are burning through billions of dollars annually on computing infrastructure, making profitable business customers essential to survival .

Dresser sent a memo to OpenAI employees on Sunday, first reported by The Verge, that directly addressed the competition with Anthropic. She argued that Anthropic's story is "built on fear, restriction, and the idea that a small group of elites should control AI," while positioning OpenAI's message as more positive: "build powerful systems, put in the right safeguards, expand access, and help people do more" . This framing suggests that OpenAI believes its advantage lies not in being the most cautious AI company, but in being the most capable and accessible to enterprise customers.

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However, critics like author and AI analyst Ed Zitron warn that the financial pressures facing both companies could create problems for businesses that have become dependent on their tools. Anthropic has already imposed rate limits on heavy users, forcing some to wait hours to access Claude, and both companies have introduced service tiers that reward premium payers . Zitron calls this dynamic the "subprime AI crisis," suggesting that as these companies struggle to achieve profitability, they may increasingly restrict access or raise prices for users who built their operations around these tools .

The outcome of this competition will likely shape the AI industry for years to come. Whether OpenAI's focus on enterprise customers and computing capacity proves more sustainable than Anthropic's emphasis on safety and responsibility remains an open question. What is clear is that the era of free, unlimited consumer AI access may be ending as companies prioritize the customers who can actually pay the bills.