ChatGPT will be widely advertising already this week, while Altman notes a significant increase in audience.

OpenAI reports growth of ChatGPT and new projects

CEO Sam Altman announced to employees that the flagship product—ChatGPT—is “once again showing a monthly growth of over 10%.” He said a new model is slated for launch this week. The platform serves more than 800 million users daily; however, competition intensifies: in December the company declared a “red code” and paused several projects to focus on improving ChatGPT.

Codex also grows

Altman noted that OpenAI’s programming product—Codex—has grown about 50% compared to last week. It is a direct competitor to Anthropic’s Claude Code development environment, which has gained widespread adoption over the past year. The company recently unveiled a new Codex model (GPT‑5.3‑Codex) and an app for Mac users. According to Altman, “the growth of Codex is incredible” and “it was an excellent week.”

Competitive challenges

Analysts believe that this week OpenAI faced several issues. During the American football final, Anthropic mocked the company’s decision to place ads in ChatGPT. In response, Altman emphasized that “OpenAI will never advertise as Anthropic describes.” Nevertheless, sources say the company will soon begin official testing of advertising in ChatGPT. As previously promised, ad blocks will be clearly marked and placed below the bot’s responses; they will not affect output quality.

OpenAI expects ads to become a significant part of revenue (at least half). In the digital advertising market, Google, Meta, and Amazon dominate, but these giants are not ready to give up without a fight.

Preparing for a new funding round

Sam Altman and CFO Sarah Frair actively convince investors of the company’s growth prospects. OpenAI is preparing to close another financing round that could amount to about $100 million (presumably billions). In closed meetings they highlight key advantages: a massive user base, growing interest from large business clients, and access to powerful computing resources.

Negotiations for raising capital are expected to intensify over the next two weeks. In March the company closed a $41 million round, including $30 million from SoftBank and $11 million from other investors. The current round may occur in two stages: the first includes Microsoft, Nvidia, and Amazon (planning to invest up to $50 million), and the second involves other major players, including an additional $30 million contribution from SoftBank.

Exact dates and amounts are not yet finalized and may change.