OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, announced on Tuesday it has appointed former Slack CEO Denise Dresser as its first Chief of Revenue. This move is a clear signal to cautious investors that the company is serious about achieving profitability from its artificial intelligence technology.
Dresser will be responsible for overseeing OpenAI's global revenue strategy and helping more businesses integrate AI into their daily operations.
Prior to joining OpenAI, Dresser spent more than a decade at Salesforce. She played a key role in integrating the work-chat service Slack after Salesforce acquired it for $27.7 billion in 2020, and was subsequently appointed Slack CEO in 2023 by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff.
Code red alert to employees
The appointment follows an internal "code red" alert set off by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman earlier this month. In an internal email, Altman urged employees to focus on improving the flagship product, ChatGPT, which resulted in the delay of other product developments.
OpenAI first released ChatGPT just over three years ago, sparking global fascination and a commercial boom in generative AI, securing an early lead for the San Francisco-based startup. However, the company now faces intense competition from rivals, including Google, which recently released Gemini 3, the latest version of its own AI assistant.
OpenAI not yet profitable
Altman stated this fall that ChatGPT now has over 800 million weekly users. Despite being valued at $500 billion, the company is not yet profitable and has accrued more than $1 trillion in financial obligations to the cloud computing providers and chipmakers that power its AI systems.
The risk that OpenAI may not generate enough revenue to meet the high expectations of backers like Oracle and Nvidia has exacerbated investor concerns about a potential AI bubble.
OpenAI sources of revenue
OpenAI currently generates revenue through premium ChatGPT subscriptions, though most users utilise the free version. In October, the company launched its own web browser, Atlas, as an attempt to compete with Google's Chrome, banking on more internet users relying on AI for answers.
However, OpenAI has not yet ventured into selling ads on ChatGPT—the primary revenue driver for Google's dominant search business.
Altman's early December memo indicated that the company was delaying work on advertising, AI agents for health and shopping, and a personal assistant project named Pulse.
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