Not yet listed but shaking up the stock market: OpenAI has become an "invisible giant" of U.S. stocks
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Although OpenAI is not publicly listed, media analysis suggests that this startup—the most valuable in the world—is having an increasingly profound impact on the stock market.
Last week, OpenAI launched an “instant buy” feature in ChatGPT, causing shares of e-commerce companies Shopify and Etsy to surge. Subsequently, the company published a blog introducing new internal features, triggering another round of volatility in documentation software stocks, with companies like Atlassian—already under pressure due to concerns about AI—falling again.
On Monday, OpenAI then signed an agreement with AMD, a deal that could bring AMD tens of billions of dollars in new revenue. Spurred by this news, AMD’s stock once soared by 38%, its largest single-day gain since April 2016, and rattled the entire chip industry, with Nvidia and Broadcom's shares both falling.
Analysts believe that such market-moving influence usually belongs only to giants like Apple or Nvidia, but now, though still a private company, OpenAI is already able to sway the stock prices of multiple listed companies. The public generally believes this $500 billion startup has no plans to go public in the short term, so any announcement or activity—such as this Monday’s annual developer conference in San Francisco—has become a weather vane closely watched by investors.
UBS analyst Karl Keirstead pointed out:
“Software and internet investors are closely watching OpenAI’s next moves and the disruptive effects it may bring.”
“As OpenAI keeps expanding, the market generally thinks the company must look more aggressively for new growth drivers beyond ChatGPT subscriptions.”
Investors are expected to look for such clues at OpenAI’s third DevDay. The media believes the conference may again trigger stock market volatility, with the shares of partners and infrastructure providers possibly benefiting, while those companies whose businesses are encroached upon by OpenAI could decline.
In a research report on October 1, Keirstead wrote that OpenAI is expected to launch more consumer-grade AI agents, possibly including a “more powerful travel assistant,” and may release an AI browser.
Tim Ghriskey, Senior Portfolio Strategist at Ingalls & Snyder, stated:
“Although we cannot invest directly in OpenAI, this event is still important. Any information about its new products or plans helps investors reassess the market landscape. Maybe we’ll find that companies previously considered at risk actually aren’t, or gain insight into the next wave of AI investment opportunities.”
Anxiety over AI disruption is becoming a reality
Since ChatGPT sparked an AI boom at the end of 2022, OpenAI has been the market focus. The ensuing AI computing race has driven up share prices for chip and cloud companies such as Nvidia and Oracle. But the previous concerns about AI disruption were mostly theoretical—now the impact is becoming real.
OpenAI is seeking to leverage its ChatGPT platform with more than 700 million users to develop new monetization models. For now, the company’s operating costs far exceed its subscription revenue. According to media reports, OpenAI’s revenue will reach $4.3 billion in the first half of 2025, but it will still lose $2.5 billion.
OpenAI has also developed multiple AI tools in-house to simplify research, make contract documents searchable, provide personalized responses for sales leads, and assist with customer support. These efforts were disclosed in a blog post by Chief Business Officer Giancarlo Lionetti on September 29.
The piece triggered steep declines in shares of software firms such as Klaviyo, DocuSign, HubSpot, Atlassian, and ZoomInfo, each falling more than 9% last week. Goldman Sachs’ SaaS stock basket index also posted its biggest weekly drop in two months, slipping 3.3%.
However, some believe the market is overreacting to the perceived threat from OpenAI. Last week, OpenAI released a social app capable of generating and sharing AI videos, but social media stocks did not see a similar shock. Meta’s share performance lagged, but Snap actually rose over 3%.
Bank of America analyst Brad Sills’ team wrote in a report on October 2:
“Although software companies face potential threats from AI technology, the negative stock reaction seems disconnected from fundamentals.”
Nevertheless, Zacks Investment Research senior strategist Kevin Cook believes that as OpenAI continues to expand, even as a private company, its impact on the stock market will only grow stronger.
Cook said:
“In the future, people will view OpenAI as one of the most influential drivers of AI transformation. For a private company to trigger such a big chain reaction in the market is indeed rare. OpenAI operates more flexibly and creatively, which is why it has such a ‘domino effect’ on other companies—both positive and disruptive.”
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