OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman has indicated that the artificial intelligence company could be positioned for an initial public offering as early as 2027, citing strong momentum in its enterprise business as a key driver of that confidence. Brockman made the remarks during a Wall Street Journal technology conference on Wednesday, where he discussed the company's commercial progress and its growing foothold among large corporate clients.

When asked directly whether OpenAI would be ready to go public next year, Brockman gave a straightforward answer: "I think so. Yes."

He elaborated on the company's broader thinking around a public listing, saying that OpenAI has been consistent in its intention to pursue an IPO when the timing feels right internally. "We've been very clear this year that we want to go public when we feel is the right time for us, and I feel extremely good about the business. I feel like we've made so much progress this year, and I've honestly never felt more confident in what we're doing," Brockman said.

A Difficult Start to 2026

Brockman was candid about the challenges OpenAI faced earlier in the year, describing the first and second quarters of 2026 as "pretty rough." He acknowledged that the company had been largely absent from one of the most competitive and fast-growing segments of the AI market - agentic coding. In that space, rival Anthropic had already established a strong presence through its Claude Code product, which had been capturing meaningful market share while OpenAI's comparable offering, Codex, struggled to gain traction.

"We had Codex, but no one was talking about it," Brockman said, adding that the company responded by staying focused and continuing to execute on its roadmap rather than reacting to competitive pressure.

The pivot in fortunes came in the third quarter, when OpenAI reported 70% quarterly growth in annualized revenue. Brockman attributed that acceleration primarily to the enterprise side of the business, which he said had doubled during that period. He was careful to note that this growth was not the result of any single event or product launch during the quarter, but rather the payoff from a series of investments and strategic decisions the company had been making over a longer period.

Enterprise Now Drives the Majority of Revenue

Perhaps the most striking shift Brockman described was in the composition of OpenAI's revenue. Where enterprise clients had previously accounted for roughly 30% of the company's total revenue, that segment has now grown to represent the majority of its business. Importantly, he was clear that this shift did not come at the expense of consumer revenue, which has continued to grow - it is simply that the enterprise segment has expanded at a far faster rate.

"And it's not that consumer [revenue has shrunk] ... It's been growing, but it's the enterprise segment has really taken off," Brockman said. He pointed to a recently announced partnership with JPMorgan Chase as an example of the caliber of client OpenAI is now securing, signaling that the company is competing for and winning deals with some of the largest institutions in the world.

Lessons From Selling Into the Enterprise Market

Beyond the financial metrics, Brockman reflected on the organizational and strategic lessons OpenAI has absorbed from its push into enterprise sales. He described a process of learning how to engage with large businesses in a way that builds genuine trust and demonstrates long-term commitment. According to Brockman, the company came to understand that its role was not simply to sell AI tools, but to help clients identify the most meaningful outcomes they could realistically achieve with those tools, and then prove that OpenAI would be a dependable partner in helping them get there.

That reframing has apparently made a significant difference in how the company is perceived by prospective clients. Brockman recalled that as recently as a year ago, many companies OpenAI approached would question whether the organization was genuinely committed to serving enterprise customers at all, or whether it would remain primarily a consumer-facing product company.

"A year ago, we weren't even really in the enterprise game, right? We were really perceived as a consumer company, and a lot of the companies we'd start talking to would say, 'Is OpenAI really committed to the enterprise?' But it's so different today."

The contrast between that earlier perception and the company's current standing in the enterprise market underscores how rapidly OpenAI's commercial identity has evolved. With a potential IPO on the horizon and enterprise revenue now forming the backbone of its business, the company appears to be positioning itself as a serious long-term player in the corporate technology sector - not just a consumer AI platform known for its popular chatbot products.

OpenAI has not announced any formal IPO timeline or filed any regulatory documentation related to a public offering. Brockman's comments represent the clearest public signal yet from a senior executive that the company is actively preparing for that step, with 2027 serving as a plausible target window if current growth trends continue.