OpenAI plans to nearly double its workforce to around 8,000 employees by the end of the year, as it accelerates its corporate strategy and catches up with competitors, the Financial Times reported on Saturday.
Hiring will span customer-focused engineering, research, product, sales and deployment roles designed to increase enterprise adoption of its tools.
The expansion comes as Sam Altman’s company accelerates its efforts to bolster enterprise revenue and respond to growing pressure from rivals such as Anthropic and Google in the enterprise and consumer AI markets.
Anthropic, OpenAI’s closest rival in enterprise AI, has been making headway with its Claude product line. Eight of the Fortune 10 companies now use Claude. Google’s Gemini models also continue to advance, supported by Google’s distribution reach and cloud infrastructure.
OpenAI is also revamping its product offerings, including more closely integrating tools like ChatGPT and Codex.
This hiring drive follows OpenAI’s $110 billion fundraising in February 2026, which valued the company at $730 billion pre-money. The deal strengthens its computing capacity and global reach as demand for AI products continues to rise.
OpenAI considering public listing
OpenAI is preparing for a possible IPO as early as the fourth quarter of 2026.
The company is hiring experienced financial and operational leaders while working to convert its massive user base into high-value enterprise customers in coding, research and business applications.
This potential public listing could become one of the biggest tech IPOs in recent years, if not all time, alongside Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Anthropic.
SpaceX is advancing plans for a 2026 IPO and has selected major Wall Street banks as lead advisors and underwriters.
The company plans to raise more than $25 billion, which would be one of the largest IPOs in history. Its valuation has already jumped thanks to secondary sales and could exceed $1 trillion if it goes public.
Rapid hiring boom could increase cost risks
OpenAI’s willingness to spend at this rate, backed by investors who have committed historic sums, will likely lead to similar expansions from its competitors. If enterprise buyers prove slower to commit than projections imply, OpenAI could find itself with an oversized workforce and huge fixed costs that weigh even on a $25 billion revenue base.
The company also faces multiple lawsuits related to training data and intellectual property, adding to the uncertainty enterprise clients face when selecting long-term technology partners.
