Anthropic Books Gross Cloud Sales; OpenAI Only Its Net Share

Two numbers that investors use to size up the private AI race are not measuring the same thing. Bloomberg reported on October 9 that Anthropic counts the gross amount of sales through cloud partners like Amazon.com as revenue, while OpenAI records only its share of certain sales through partners like Microsoft.

The reported run rates do not line up. Anthropic's annualized revenue hit $65 billion by the end of July. OpenAI expects to reach or exceed $70 billion in annualized revenue by the end of the year. "The numbers are not apples to apples," Bloomberg wrote.

OpenAI itself told investors its annualized revenue is "approaching $50 billion." Its actual full-year 2026 revenue is expected to be around $35 billion, about half of the year-end target. The $70 billion figure, per the reporting, was devised via attempts by OpenAI's own investors to produce a direct comparison with Anthropic's annualised revenues.

Markets priced in the confusion. The confusion over the revenue figures helped send the Nasdaq 100 Index down 1.4% and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index down 3.4%.

The pair dominates our feed — our tracker has logged 405 OpenAI stories and 342 Anthropic stories in the last 90 days — and which number investors trust to compare the two will shape how the next round of secondaries clears.