OpenAI is slowing preparations for what could become one of the largest public offerings in technology history, choosing to prioritize product development and business expansion over rushing to the stock market even after confidentially filing for an initial public offering (IPO) with U.S. regulators.
People familiar with the company’s plans told CNBC that OpenAI has not yet begun the traditional pre-IPO “testing-the-waters” meetings with institutional investors, nor has it established an official timetable for its listing.
Those meetings, which allow companies and their investment bankers to gauge investor demand, valuation expectations, and pricing before formally launching an IPO, are expected to begin only after OpenAI has greater clarity on when it intends to go public, the sources said.
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The measured approach highlights the company’s determination to avoid committing to a listing date prematurely, even as investor appetite for artificial intelligence companies remains exceptionally strong.
Earlier this month, OpenAI confidentially filed a draft registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), allowing the company to prepare for a public offering without immediately disclosing detailed financial information. The confidential filing is widely regarded as an important milestone, giving the ChatGPT developer flexibility to move ahead with an IPO when market conditions are favorable while continuing to operate as a private company in the meantime.
However, OpenAI has consistently sought to temper expectations over the timing of its Wall Street debut.
In a post on X following the filing, the company stressed that an IPO “may be a while,” signaling that regulatory preparations should not be interpreted as an imminent listing. The cautious messaging follows a report by The New York Times on Thursday that OpenAI is increasingly leaning toward delaying its IPO until 2027. The company did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the report.
Avoiding the pitfalls of a volatile IPO market
The slower pace points to broader uncertainty surrounding technology listings, even as artificial intelligence remains the hottest segment of global equity markets.
Investment bankers advising OpenAI have reportedly cautioned that recent volatility in newly listed AI companies could dampen retail investor enthusiasm if the company moves too quickly.
Those concerns have been amplified by the performance of SpaceX, whose record-breaking IPO earlier this month briefly propelled founder Elon Musk to become the world’s first trillionaire. While the listing attracted enormous investor demand, SpaceX shares have experienced significant volatility during their first weeks of trading, highlighting the risks facing even the most anticipated technology offerings.
The market’s reaction has bolstered the view that OpenAI may benefit from waiting until investor sentiment stabilizes before pursuing what is expected to rank among the largest technology IPOs ever.
Financing No Longer An Urgent Priority
Unlike many high-growth technology companies that go public primarily to raise capital, OpenAI currently faces little pressure to tap public markets for financing. The company completed a massive $122 billion funding round earlier this year, giving it an estimated valuation of $852 billion, including the newly raised capital. That financing provides substantial resources to support its aggressive spending on AI chips, data centers, model development, and global expansion without immediately relying on public investors.
Chief Executive Sam Altman has repeatedly emphasized that the company’s priority remains technological leadership rather than financial engineering.
Speaking to CNBC earlier this month, Altman said: “I think there is a race to deliver the best technology and build the best business, but, you know, going public is a financing event, and I don’t think that’s one that we’re focused on the timing of.”
This suggests management views an IPO as a strategic financing option rather than a near-term objective.
OpenAI’s listing plans are also unfolding alongside similar preparations by chief rival Anthropic, which has likewise confidentially filed IPO paperwork with regulators but has yet to announce a target listing date. The parallel filings underscore how the two leading AI developers are competing on multiple fronts beyond frontier model development, including capital raising, infrastructure investment, and eventually access to public equity markets.
Both companies are investing heavily in expanding computing capacity as they race to build powerful AI systems, driving unprecedented spending on advanced semiconductors, cloud infrastructure, and data centers.
Although OpenAI has not committed to a listing schedule, interest from investors remains exceptionally high. The company sits at the center of the generative AI boom, with ChatGPT becoming one of the fastest-growing consumer applications in history while OpenAI continues expanding its enterprise offerings through partnerships with businesses worldwide.
Its eventual IPO is expected to become one of the defining events for public equity markets, offering investors one of the first opportunities to directly own shares in a leading frontier AI developer.