OpenAI says a rough first half of 2026 gave way to a sales jump

OpenAI says its business turned a corner this year. Greg Brockman, the company's president, called the first half of 2026 "pretty rough." He then described a "revenue inflection" in the third quarter, which means sales picked up sharply. The Wall Street Journal reported his comments.

What he credited

Brockman pointed to three things behind the turnaround. The first is agentic coding tools, which are AI helpers that can carry out programming tasks on their own instead of just suggesting a line of code. The second is a model called GPT-5.6 Sol. The third is ChatGPT Work, a version of ChatGPT aimed at work tasks.

Who it affects

OpenAI is the company behind ChatGPT. Its comments suggest that tools built for work, not just general chat, are where customers are spending. For business owners, that likely means more pitches for AI products meant to handle everyday office and technical jobs.

What is not known yet

The material available does not include any sales figures, so the size of the jump is unclear. It also does not say what made the first half so rough, or how much each product contributed. Those claims also come from an OpenAI executive, not an outside review of the company's books.

What to watch

Expect OpenAI and its rivals to keep pushing work-focused AI tools. Before paying for one, test it on a real task in your business and compare the cost to the time it saves.