OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar Says Company Is Meeting Key Objectives

OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar stated on April 30, 2026, that the company is meeting its core objectives, countering recent reports regarding missed internal targets. In an interview with Bloomberg published on May 1, 2026, Friar indicated that the primary constraint on the company’s growth is a lack of compute rather than a lack of demand for its products.

The CFO’s comments follow a report from the Wall Street Journal on April 27, 2026, which claimed OpenAI had fallen short of internal goals for revenue and new user acquisition. That report suggested that executives, including Friar, expressed concern over whether the company could fund its data center expansions if revenue growth did not accelerate.

OpenAI disputed the Wall Street Journal’s findings. According to a Bloomberg report on April 28, 2026, the company described the report as prime clickbait and asserted that its enterprise and consumer businesses are firing on all cylinders. The company further stated that the internal mood remains incredibly positive.

Addressing Internal Targets and Demand

During the Bloomberg interview, Friar clarified that the company utilizes stretch goals which are more ambitious than the objectives shared publicly. She noted that such targets are a standard practice in her professional experience as both a CFO and an analyst.

“Every company I’ve ever been inside of in my entire CFO life, and as an analyst, always has stretch goals — always,”

Sarah Friar, CFO of OpenAI

Despite the internal debate over stretch goals, Friar emphasized that demand for OpenAI’s product suite continues to grow. The current bottleneck, she indicated, is the available computing power necessary to scale those products to meet user needs.

Revenue Projections and Monetization Shifts

Reports from The Information indicate that OpenAI is anticipating a significant shift in its subscription revenue model. While the company is projecting that revenues will more than double to $30 billion in 2026, it has set a long-term target of $284 billion by 2030.

For the past three years, the bulk of OpenAI’s revenue has been derived from ChatGPT Plus, the flagship subscription service priced at $20 per month. However, the company is now planning to introduce a cheaper, ad-supported subscription tier.

This strategic pivot is expected to have two primary effects on the user base: attracting new users who were previously deterred by the cost, and prompting some existing subscribers to downgrade from the premium tier. The company intends to offset the loss from downgrades by generating advertising revenue from a larger total volume of users.

Advertising Growth and Infrastructure Costs

OpenAI is aggressively pursuing an advertising business to help subsidize the high costs associated with developing AI technology. According to reports from April 9, 2026, the company expects its advertising arm to generate $2.5 billion in revenue in 2026.

The company’s long-term projections for this segment are substantial, with a target of $100 billion in advertising revenue by the end of the decade. This push toward diversified monetization reflects the soaring operational expenses required to maintain and expand the company’s AI infrastructure and data centers.