ChatGPT
“Can a conversational AI interface become the dominant new storefront — the agentic commerce layer between consumers and the world's merchants?”
Founded2015
HQSan Francisco, California, USA
FoundersSam Altman, Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Wojciech Zaremba, John Schulman
Total raised$150B+ (cumulative)
Latest round$110B at $840B post-money (2026)
Valuation$840B post-money (2026)
IndustryFintech / Consumer AI (with embedded commerce)
The story
Founded 2015 as a nonprofit AI research lab. Pivoted in 2019 to a capped-profit structure to raise Microsoft capital, then again in 2025 to a Public Benefit Corporation. The ChatGPT launch in late 2022 transformed it from a research lab into a consumer + enterprise platform with 700M+ weekly users. In September 2025, OpenAI entered embedded finance by launching Instant Checkout in ChatGPT with Stripe and co-publishing the open Agentic Commerce Protocol — turning ChatGPT from an answer engine into a transactional storefront for agentic commerce.
Last 12 months
2026-02
Product timeline
2015
OpenAI founded as a nonprofit AI research organization in San Francisco.· founding
2019
Created for-profit subsidiary; Sam Altman becomes CEO; major Microsoft investment begins.· pivot
2022
ChatGPT launched in November, catalyzing the global generative AI boom.· product_launch
2023
ChatGPT Enterprise launched; Altman briefly ousted and reinstated by board.· product_launch
2025
Restructured for-profit arm into OpenAI Group PBC, 26% owned by OpenAI Foundation.· pivot
2025
Launched Instant Checkout in ChatGPT with Stripe; co-released the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) — first move into embedded commerce.· embedded_finance
2026
Closed $110B round at $840B valuation, the largest venture deal in history.· funding
In the press
embeddedfinancereview.com ↗Coverage sourced from Embedded Finance Review — a content partner for this report. All articles are © their original authors; click any card to open the source.
The stack
1 layer disclosed in ChatGPT’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
Accounting gap: none