Ten Years Of OpenAI In 10 Charts

OpenAI says it’s “almost certain” we’ll build superintelligence in the next ten years.

• OpenAI started as a research lab in 2015, and became a for-profit entity earlier this year.
• The company stunned the world with ChatGPT in late 2022, which had an outsized impact on business and society and inspired hundreds of AI solutions.
• Microsoft’s early backing of OpenAI has come to be regarded as one of the most successful business partnerships in the current era. 

OpenAI turned 10, the company announced in a blog post on Thursday.

From being set up as a research lab in 2015, the company has scaled incredibly to have an outsized impact on business and society, unlike few before it. “From a deeply uncertain start and against all reasonable odds, with continued hard work it now looks like we have a shot to succeed at our mission,” OpenAI’s blog post read. It also linked a picture from the first day of the company in January 2016.

OpenAI detailed its journey through various achievements and pitfalls, several large language models (LLMs), and the November 2022 public launch of ChatGPT – “The world took notice.”

“In ten more years, I believe we are almost certain to build superintelligence,” the company said, referring to the concept of an AI capable of outperforming humans across all intellectual tasks with far greater speed, accuracy, and insight.

Here’re 10 charts that show OpenAI’s impact in business:

OpenAI is the most-valued private company in the world today

Key milestones

Timeline	Event
Dec-15	Sam Altman sets up OpenAI as a reseach lab
Jul-19	Microsoft invests $1B
Jun-20	GPT-3 API rollout, the first-ever commercial LLM
Nov-22	ChatGPT public release
Mar-23	GPT-4 laucnhes, set "Intelligence" benchmark
Nov-23	OpenAI ousts & then reinstates CEO Sam Altman, leading to a board reshuffle
Feb-24	Sora video generation model launches, stuns film-makers
Mar-25	Raises $40B funding led by SoftBank, largest private round ever
Oct-25	Converts to a for-profit entity
Nov-25	OpenAI nears $20B ARR, commits $1.4T investment over 8 years

ChatGPT became the second-most viral app globally

Unleashes an explosion in cloud capacity 

Nvidia, upon finding out that its graphics-centric GPUs also do great with AI tasks, becames an unexpected beneficiary of the AI boom

New LLM development at breakneck pace; developing regions lead growth for U.S. AI apps (source: Mary Meeker's ‘Bond’ Report - May 2025)

ChatGPT and AI apps are disrupting Google's core search business

Although, ChatGPT and Gemini are forming a duopoly

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