ChatGPT goes public: what the OpenAI IPO means for investors

**Charlene Young** (0:09)
Hello, and welcome to the latest episode of the AJ Bell Money & Markets podcast. I'm Charlene Young, and joining me this week is Tom Sieber.

**Tom Sieber** (0:17)
Hi Charlene. Yes, we've got lots to cover on this episode. You might spot we've not got a guest interview this week. Timing on interviews is sometimes out of our hands, but we are working on some as we speak, so you can expect more expert voices on the pod soon. But fear not, between the two of us, we're still gonna cover plenty of grounds, including the owner of ChatGPT's plans to join the stock market, GSK's biggest deal in a decade, the stock market's world cup winners, as well as plans to change inheritance rules for co-habiting partners, proposals to broaden access to mortgages, and the thorny topic of pocket money.

**Charlene Young** (0:52)
Before we get started with all of that, we just wanted to talk briefly about a topic which has probably been notable to some listeners for its absence from the podcast, and that is SpaceX. Now, because AJ Bell is enabling customers to participate in the IPO, there are some pesky listing rules from the US, which means we've been prevented from saying anything to you or kind of discussing this topic. However, we are planning a big look and review at it all in next week's show.
Now, while we're talking about IPOs, there's been more big news on that front for investors to digest this week, as the company behind ChatGPT firmed up its plans to join the stock market. Now, it feels like we were kind of expecting this one. It feels like they're kind of being left behind a little bit, Tom. Can you kind of fill us in a bit more on what's been going on?

**Tom Sieber** (1:43)
Yeah, I think that's a really good point. I mean, it's probably been one of the worst kept secrets on the market that OpenAI has been planning to IPO in 2026 at some point. And you're right, it has in some sense been left behind. Just over a week ago, we had the Anthropic, which owns Claude. So one of the rival chatbots to ChatGPT is planning to list on the stock market. So OpenAI has announced its own plans. Reportedly, it's seeking evaluation upwards of $1 trillion.
And it's a significant moment both for the business itself, but for the whole AI theme, because when you think about it, it was ChatGPT that really lit a touch paper on AI back in 2022 when it launched. And OpenAI has been so central to everything that we've been seeing and hearing about AI and its impacts on the markets over the last two, three years.

**Charlene Young** (2:47)
I think we're back to talking like Dr. Evil from Austin Powers, and we're going to talk a little bit about the valuation numbers again, similar to last year.
And then I feel like you should be going like this at this point. But how do we think all of this might be received by investors? What does it tell us about this kind of AI market?

**Tom Sieber** (3:06)
Yeah, I think it'll be a really interesting test actually of that because we have seen a bit of a wobble recently in AI related stocks after a very strong run. So these kind of corrections aren't that uncommon when you see a really strong run for a theme or an area of the market for the to be corrections. But I think because OpenAI is, well, we're yet to see the full financial details, but widely expected or thought to be quite heavily loss making, because it's spending huge sums on data centers, other kind of AI infrastructure. I think when the prospectus is published, there's going to be a lot of scrutiny on that, just how much money is it losing? How sustainable is that?
What is the long-term plan to actually make a profit out of ChatGPT?
I think it will be a really useful barometer of how the market is feeling about AI. Is it still as excited about it? Is it starting to get a bit concerned about something we've talked about a lot, I think, which is, is this actually going to make money, and will the patience that's been afforded to a lot of participants in this story who perhaps haven't been demonstrating the commercial benefits of AI, will that still be extended to OpenAI when it joins the stock market? I think it'll be really interesting. It looks like it's going to happen sometime around this autumn based on the time involved in getting all the various things signed off and ticking all the boxes that it needs to do before it joins the market. So, you know, I think there will be a lot of eyes on OpenAI when it finally makes that step later this year.