OpenAI IPO: is ChatGPT’s last-minute overhaul a warning sign?

OpenAI is preparing its biggest ChatGPT redesign since launch, just as investors start looking harder at the numbers behind a possible blockbuster IPO.

As per a Financial Times report, the company is trying to turn ChatGPT from a question-and-answer chatbot into a broader productivity platform, with coding, agents, image tools and third-party apps sitting inside the same interface.

For users, that may be a natural evolution, but Wall Street is looking at a push to prove that OpenAI can convert massive usage into durable, high-margin revenue before public investors get a full look at its economics.

From chatbot to super app: What is actually changing

The planned overhaul is designed to make ChatGPT feel less like a chatbot and more like a super app.

That means users would be pushed more clearly toward tools such as Codex for coding, AI agents for completing tasks, image generation, and app integrations with services including Canva, Booking.com, Figma and Spotify.

The aim is to keep users inside ChatGPT for more of their daily work, rather than letting it remain a place where they ask questions and leave.

That matters because OpenAI already has the audience. ChatGPT reportedly has about 900 million weekly users and more than 50 million paying consumers.

Codex has become one of the strongest signals of paid demand, with more than 5 million weekly users, up more than sixfold since the desktop app launched in February.

The timing has raised eyebrows as a redesign of this scale, arriving before any public IPO filing, also looks like a deliberate attempt to sharpen the revenue story.

The IPO math

OpenAI is preparing for what could become one of the most closely watched listings in US market history.

Reports have said Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are advising on a potential IPO that could value the company at as much as $1 trillion (approx. Rs 279.6 trillion).

The appeal is obvious as OpenAI’s annualised revenue has reportedly topped $25 billion (approx. Rs 7 trillion), and enterprise customers already account for about 40% of sales.

That mix is important because public-market investors tend to value enterprise software revenue more highly than consumer subscriptions.

The problem is cost, as HSBC analysts have estimated that OpenAI may need more than $207 billion (approx. Rs 57.9 trillion) in additional funding by 2030, while internal projections reported by The Information have pointed to losses of about $14 billion (approx. Rs 3.9 trillion) in 2026 alone.

Deutsche Bank Research captured the uncertainty bluntly:

“It has yet to be seen how public markets will value OpenAI and its peers once they open up their financial statements to scrutiny and explain the still little-understood economics of their business models.”

What the sceptics are saying

The sceptics see the timing differently, and to them the overhaul looks less like a roadmap and more like a prospectus.

Scott Galloway, the NYU Stern professor and Prof G Markets host, has warned that “I think OpenAI could get pulled,” arguing that the gap between spending and revenue remains too wide for investors to ignore.

He has also cautioned that if the OpenAI narrative unravels, “it’s going to be ugly… there’s going to be nowhere to hide.”

His argument is not that OpenAI lacks demand, but demand alone may not be enough.

If spending remains more than twice revenue, and profitability is still years away, public investors may ask harder questions than private backers did.

The bulls case seems simple to understand as a company with a $25 billion (approx. Rs 7 trillion) revenue run rate, 900 million weekly users and rising enterprise adoption is not a normal software start-up.

If OpenAI can turn ChatGPT into the default interface for work, coding, search, design and automation, premium multiples may be justified.