OpenAI has introduced the ChatGPT for Small Business Program, a new initiative designed to provide tailored artificial intelligence solutions to small enterprises. The program aims to help smaller businesses leverage advanced tools to improve operations and customer engagement.

Program Overview

The ChatGPT for Small Business Program focuses on making AI technology accessible to a broader range of companies. By offering specific resources and tools, OpenAI intends to support the growth and efficiency of small businesses through the integration of AI.

Key Features

While specific details of the program features are outlined in the source, the core objective remains the democratization of AI for smaller entities. The program is expected to include various support mechanisms to facilitate adoption.

OpenAI has reportedly seen renewed investor demand in private secondary markets over the past month, fueled by the launch of its GPT-5.6 family of AI models and increased traction with its Codex AI coding agent. This resurgence follows a difficult start to 2026, where concerns over slowing growth, executive departures, and a lawsuit from Elon Musk weighed on share demand. Despite the recovery, Anthropic remains the preferred investment in the AI sector, continuing to attract the strongest interest from buyers.

Market Sentiment and Valuations

Private market investors buy shares from employees and early backers because neither OpenAI nor Anthropic is publicly traded. These transactions occur in fragmented secondary markets where valuations are estimates rather than continuously traded market prices. According to Caplight data cited in a report, Anthropic is currently valued at about $1.2 trillion in secondary markets, while OpenAI is valued at approximately $933 billion, marking a rise of about 20% over the past three months.

Glen Anderson, CEO of Rainmaker Securities, noted that buyer demand still favors Anthropic by roughly five buyers for every two seeking OpenAI shares. However, he observed that OpenAI is now being "bid" on far more frequently than it was a month ago. Dave McClure, founder and managing partner at Practical Venture Capital, confirmed the "resurgence" in investor interest for OpenAI.

Product Launches Drive Confidence

Several secondary market participants identified OpenAI's recent product launches as the key catalyst behind the renewed interest. The company previewed GPT-5.6 Sol in June before expanding availability this month alongside GPT-5.6 Terra and the lower-cost GPT-5.6 Luna. While independent benchmarks rank GPT-5.6 Sol among the industry's top models, Anthropic's latest Mythos and Fable models still lead some evaluations.

Mark Klein, CEO of Neostellar, pointed to OpenAI's disclosure that Codex and ChatGPT Work have reached 9 million active users. Some investors now view OpenAI as the more attractive value play, though McClure cautioned that competition from Anthropic, Chinese AI startups, and open-source models could continue to pressure the company's growth and margins.

Business Users Fuel Adoption

New data reported by OpenAI this month indicates a significant shift in the user base for its Codex coding agent. Non-developers now account for roughly 20% of Codex's 5 million weekly users and are adopting the tool three times faster than engineers. This trend validates the premise that business users, not just engineers, represent a substantial market for coding agents.

Adisorn Ratanakovit, founder and CEO of enterprise AI automation platform Complete.dev, noted that this data confirms a pattern he observed three years ago. "My take is that OpenAI and Anthropic built these tools with engineers in mind, and business users started showing up on their own," said Adisorn. "That's the shift I think this data confirms, and it's useful to see it validated at this scale."