OpenAI's $10 Billion milestone

👋 Good morning/evening (wherever you are). It’s Monday.

OpenAI is now at $10B ARR, and that’s only from product revenue.

According to CNBC:

• The $10B ARR includes revenue from:

  • ChatGPT consumer subscriptions

  • ChatGPT business products

  • API usage

• It excludes:

  • Microsoft licensing revenue

  • Large one-time enterprise deals

Last year, OpenAI was doing around $5.5B ARR and burning nearly the same amount.

Now it's aiming for $125B in revenue by 2029.

It’s a defining moment and a clear signal of where the market is heading.

Switching gears:

Total Pixel Space won the Grand Prix at AIFF 2025, beating out 6,000 entries.

It takes home $15,000 (Cash prize & 1,000,000 Runway credits).

Watch the winning video. Posted on LinkedIn.

OK let’s keep going ↓

Here’s what you should know:

• Here’s the next cohort of the Google.org Accelerator: Generative AI

  These 20 organizations, which will use generative AI to address significant societal problems including crisis response, antimicrobial resistance and children's mental health, were selected through an open call for nonprofits, social enterprises, civic entities and universities.

• How LVMH is using AI

  Over the past four years, the conglomerate has worked with Google Cloud to build a central data platform, housing data from its 75 brands, known as maisons. It’s now applying predictive AI, generative AI and agents in areas like supply chain planning, pricing, product design, marketing and personalization, all with the goal of maintaining and growing market share and improving operational efficiency.

• U.S. News acquires Sups AI

  U.S. News & World Report today announced the majority deal acquisition of Sups, an AI college admissions guidance platform with students in 180 countries. Sups joins the CollegeAdvisor.com division of U.S. News to democratize college admissions guidance with AI.

• Ohio State launches AI fluency initiative

  Launching this fall for first-year students, Ohio State’s AI Fluency initiative will embed AI education into the core of every undergraduate curriculum, equipping students with the ability to not only use AI tools, but to understand, question and innovate with them — no matter their major.

• UC Irvine to lead use of AI in solving challenges below Earth's surface

  The Geophysicist.AI project is meant to stimulate advances in harnessing sustainable geothermal energy, sequestering carbon dioxide underground and providing safe, long-term storage of spent nuclear fuels, among other goals.

• ChatGPT’s voice mode has more natural-sounding speech

  Over the weekend, OpenAI upgraded Advanced Voice in ChatGPT for paid users with significant enhancements in intonation and naturalness, making interactions feel more fluid and human-like

The numbers:

• Amazon commits $20B to build an AI data center in Pennsylvania as part of its national tech expansion.

• Meta is in talks to invest up to $10B in Scale AI to deepen its model training capabilities.

• Qualcomm acquires Alphawave for $2.4B to expand its AI and connectivity portfolio.

• RSM to invest $1B through 2028 to bring agentic AI into tax, audit, and consulting workflows.

• Guardz raises $56M Series B to scale AI-powered cybersecurity for SMBs and MSPs.

• Pactum secures $54M Series C to expand its autonomous AI negotiation platform for enterprise procurement.

• Definely raises $30M Series B to automate legal drafting and review with embedded agentic AI tools.

Thought starters:

• An AI-induced recession on the horizon? Klarna's CEO thinks so

• At Banff, Media Leaders Debate AI as Job Killer

• The Illusion of Thinking

Meme of the day:

Thanks for reading,

Eddie

Are we friends on LinkedIn and X? Let’s connect — DM me or hit the follow button.

P.S. If this was valuable, forward it to a friend. If you’re that smart friend, subscribe here.

P.P.S. Interested in reaching other ambitious readers like you? To become a sponsor, reply to this email.