TL;DR
- IPO Prep: OpenAI has hired law firms Cooley and Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz to begin formal preparations for a public offering as early as 2026.
- Amazon Deadline: A $35 billion portion of Amazon’s $50 billion investment is contingent on OpenAI completing its IPO or achieving AGI by the end of 2026.
- Record Valuation: OpenAI raised $110 billion in February 2026 at a $730 billion pre-money valuation, backed by Amazon, Nvidia, and SoftBank.
- Skepticism Remains: NYU professor Scott Galloway has warned that OpenAI’s competitive advantages are thin and the IPO could be pulled entirely.
OpenAI has hired Cooley and Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz to prepare for a public offering that could come as soon as 2026, with a portion of Amazon’s investment contingent on the listing. The selection was first reported by The Information, which cited people familiar with the matter. An OpenAI IPO would open a stake in the pioneer of the current AI boom to ordinary investors for the first time, something its existing private structure has made impossible.
The move marks a notable transition for a company that began as a nonprofit research lab just a decade ago.
IPO Preparations Take Shape
OpenAI has tapped two highly regarded firms for its IPO preparations: Cooley, which has extensive experience advising technology companies through public offerings, and Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz, known for complex M&A and securities work. Hiring law firms is typically the first formal step in the IPO process, preceding the appointment of investment banks to advise on the listing.
Moreover, the financial stakes sharpening that timeline are substantial. According to The Information, $35 billion of Amazon’s $50 billion investment in OpenAI is contingent on the company either completing its IPO or achieving artificial general intelligence by the end of 2026, a clause that sets the outer bound of OpenAI’s IPO window.
Building on this, OpenAI’s confirmed the company raised $110 billion in February 2026, one of the largest private funding rounds in history, at a $730 billion pre-money valuation.
Per that announcement, the round was backed by $50 billion from Amazon, $30 billion from Nvidia, and $30 billion from SoftBank, and remains open with more investors expected to join before it closes.
In practice, a standard IPO process from initial regulatory filing to first trading day typically spans twelve to eighteen months. The Amazon contingency clause transforms what might otherwise be a flexible timeline into a hard execution deadline, one the law firm appointments signal OpenAI is now treating with urgency.
Scale and Precedent
That urgency is understandable given the scale at play. No technology company has attempted a public listing at this implied valuation, and a listing would rank among the biggest IPOs of all time and set a new benchmark for technology companies globally.
OpenAI completed its for-profit restructuring after securing California regulatory approval in October 2025, clearing the legal obstacle that had stood between its nonprofit origins and the public markets. With that hurdle behind it, successive fundraising rounds have continued to push the company’s implied valuation higher.
Sustaining that valuation in public markets will be a different challenge. Institutional investors who cannot rely on private-market optimism will demand evidence of durable revenue trajectory and competitive defensibility, a test OpenAI will have to pass in the prospectus phase and beyond.
Not All Observers Are Convinced
Meanwhile, not all observers expect the listing to proceed as planned. NYU Stern professor Scott Galloway has assigned a “nonzero probability” to OpenAI abandoning its IPO entirely, pointing to eroding competitive advantages as the primary risk.
“I think OpenAI could get pulled,” Galloway told Fortune in February. On the sustainability of the company’s market position, he was direct: “OpenAI’s sustainable advantage is really, really thin.”
The concern reflects intensifying competition from Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and emerging Chinese AI labs, all of which have narrowed the capability gap that once gave ChatGPT a singular market position. Without a durable competitive moat, sustaining the premium valuation required for a successful IPO becomes materially harder.
As a result, whether OpenAI can make that case to public market investors is an open question as formal preparations begin. Appointing investment banks is the next formal milestone, followed by regulatory filings and prospectus preparation, steps that will determine whether OpenAI’s 2026 timeline is achievable or whether the offering slips into the following year.