According to PYMNTS.com, citing a report from The Information on December 17, OpenAI is in early talks for a funding round that could value the company at around $750 billion. This comes just a day after reports that Amazon is discussing a $10 billion investment that would value OpenAI at $500 billion. Earlier in December, The Walt Disney Company announced a $1 billion investment and a three-year deal to use OpenAI’s Sora video model with its characters. These reports follow a wild few months where OpenAI’s valuation jumped from $300 billion in August to $500 billion in an October share sale. The company also just reported that ChatGPT Enterprise now has over 7 million workplace seats, a ninefold increase year-over-year.
Valuation Whiplash
Here’s the thing: these numbers are getting absurd. Basically, OpenAI‘s valuation has more than doubled in about four months, from $300B to a potential $750B. That’s not just growth; that’s a speculative frenzy. And it’s all happening while the company publicly says an IPO “is not our focus.” So what’s driving this? It seems like a perfect storm of enterprise adoption—those 7 million seats are a huge signal—and massive strategic bets from giants like Disney and Amazon who are terrified of being left behind. They’re not just investing in a company; they’re buying a ticket to the front row of the AI revolution.
The New AI Alliances
The Disney deal is particularly fascinating. It’s not just a billion dollars; it’s a licensing agreement that lets Sora play in the Disney sandbox. CEO Robert Iger talked about extending storytelling “thoughtfully and responsibly,” but let’s be real. This is about cost, scale, and fan engagement at a speed Hollywood can’t match. Now, throw in Amazon’s potential $10 billion. That’s a direct shot across the bow at Microsoft, OpenAI’s primary backer. Is the AI landscape fracturing into competing coalitions? It sure looks like it. You’ve got Microsoft-OpenAI, Google-DeepMind, and now Amazon might be buying its way into the inner circle. The old tech wars have just been rebooted with AI as the ultimate prize.
What’s a Reasonable Number?
But a $750 billion valuation? Let’s put that in perspective. That’s more than the market cap of Tesla or Visa. For a company that, while growing explosively, is still figuring out its long-term revenue model beyond enterprise subscriptions and API fees. The report mentions the company was considering raising at least $60 billion for a potential IPO. That’s a staggering amount of capital. It makes you wonder: is this funding meant to build AGI, or is it a war chest to outspend every other lab on the planet for talent and compute? Probably both. The risk, of course, is that these valuations create impossible expectations. When you’re worth three-quarters of a trillion dollars, investors will demand profits that match.
The Enterprise Engine
Maybe the most solid ground in all this is the enterprise data. A ninefold increase in ChatGPT Enterprise seats is a monster metric. When the average worker is sending 30% more messages per week, it means the tool is sticking. It’s becoming workflow. That’s the kind of adoption that justifies big bets, even if the current valuation feels sky-high. This isn’t just consumer hype anymore; it’s getting baked into how big companies operate. And in the world of B2B software, that’s where the real, sustained money is. So while the valuation headlines are dizzying, the on-the-ground usage might be the story that actually matters in the long run.
