Shelly Palmer - OpenAI hits 300 million weekly active users

OpenAI’s user base has surged to an impressive 300 million weekly active users, CEO Sam Altman revealed at The New York Times DealBook Summit. His ambition is to get to a billion by next year.

To drive adoption, OpenAI is investing in product innovation. Today (December 5) is the first day of what Altman called "the twelve days of shipmas," where OpenAI will introduce new products daily for the next 12 days. This should include Sora, the company's text-to-video AI model. The company is also investing in marketing, hiring Coinbase’s Kate Rouch as its first CMO.

Altman also addressed reports of exclusivity clauses with investors, clarifying that OpenAI restricts competitors from accessing proprietary materials like its roadmap, not from receiving funding.

With $13 billion raised, a $6.6 billion round closed in October, and a $4 billion credit line, OpenAI’s momentum shows no signs of slowing. Additionally, the company opened a $1.5 billion tender offer to SoftBank, further fueling its expansion ambitions.

As OpenAI scales, its competition intensifies (Amazon's Nova, Google's Gemini, Anthropic's Claude, XAI's Grok, Mistral, and Llama to name a few). But, IMHO, OpenAI is the best-in-class right now.

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