Just three years after the public rollout of ChatGPT, which propelled OpenAI to the very top in the artificial intelligence race and made it a household name, rivals have started closing the gap, and some investors are wondering if the sensation has the potential to stay dominant.
Investor Michael Burry, made famous in the film "The Big Short," recently likened OpenAI to Netscape, which ruled the web browser market in the mid-1990s only to lose to Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
"OpenAI is the next Netscape, doomed and hemorrhaging cash," Burry said recently in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Researcher Gary Marcus, known for being skeptical of AI hype, sees OpenAI as having lost the lead it captured with the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022.
The startup is "burning billions of dollars a month," Marcus said of OpenAI.
"Given how long the writing has been on the wall, I can only shake my head" as it falls.
Yet ChatGPT was a tech launch like no other, breaking all consumer product growth records and now boasting more than 800 million – paid subscription and unpaid – weekly users.
OpenAI's valuation has soared to $500 billion in funding rounds, higher than any other private company.
But the ChatGPT maker will end this year with a loss of several billion dollars and does not expect to be profitable before 2029, an eternity in the fast-moving and uncertain world of AI.
Nonetheless, the startup has committed to paying more than $1.4 trillion to computer chip makers and data center builders to build the infrastructure it needs for AI.
The fierce cash burn is raising questions, especially since Google claims some 650 million people use its Gemini AI monthly and the tech giant has massive online ad revenue to back its spending on technology.
Rivals Amazon, Meta and OpenAI-investor Microsoft have deep pockets the ChatGPT-maker cannot match.
A charismatic salesman, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, flashed rare annoyance when asked about the startup's multi-trillion-dollar contracts in early November.
A few days later, he warned internally that the startup is likely to face a "turbulent environment" and an "unfavorable economic climate," particularly given competitive pressure from Google.
And when Google released its latest model to positive reactions, Altman issued a "red alert," urging OpenAI teams to give ChatGPT their best efforts.
OpenAI unveiled its latest ChatGPT model last week, that same day announcing Disney would invest in the startup and license characters for use in the bot and Sora video-generating tool.
OpenAI's challenge is inspiring the confidence that the large sums of money it is investing will pay off, according to Foundation Capital partner Ashu Garg.
For now, OpenAI is raising money at lofty valuations while returns on those investments are questionable, Garg added.
Yet OpenAI still has the faith of the world's deepest-pocketed investors.
"I'm always expecting OpenAI's valuation to come down because competition is coming and its capital structure is so obviously inappropriate," said Pluris Valuation Advisors president Espen Robak.
"But it only seems to be going up."
Opinions are mixed on whether the situation will result in OpenAI postponing becoming a publicly traded company or instead rushing its way to Wall Street to cash in on the AI euphoria.
Few AI industry analysts expect OpenAI to implode completely, since there is room in the market for several models to thrive.
"At the end of the day, it's not winner take all," said CFRA analyst Angelo Zino.
"All of these companies will take a piece of the pie, and the pie continues to get bigger," he said of AI industry frontrunners.
Also factored in is that while OpenAI has made dizzying financial commitments, the terms of deals tend to be flexible and Microsoft is still a major backer of the startup.
