This is how OpenAI plays puppeteer to publicly listed tech stocks

OpenAI may not be publicly traded, but the world’s most valuable startup is increasingly making waves in the stock market.

Just last week, OpenAI sent shares of e-commerce companies Shopify Inc. and Etsy Inc. soaring after unveiling an instant buy option in ChatGPT. Then a blog post detailing new features the company is using internally sent a fresh wave of jitters through software stocks such as Atlassian Corp., already reeling from fears about AI disruption.

On Monday, it inked a deal with Advanced Micro Devices Inc. that could generate tens of billions of dollars in new revenue for the chipmaker. AMD shares soared and the news sent shock waves through the rest of the industry. Nvidia Corp. and Broadcom Inc. slid.

Such market-moving sway, usually reserved for behemoths such as Apple Inc. or Nvidia, is the latest sign of OpenAI’s rising influence on a wide variety of stocks even though there’s little indication the startup, which was recently valued at $500 billion, plans to list its shares anytime soon. T

“Software and internet investors are keenly focused on where OpenAI will go next and how disruptive it could be,” UBS analyst Karl Keirstead said. As OpenAI continues to expand, he said, “the consensus view is that it will have to diversify more aggressively beyond ChatGPT subscriptions.”

Of course, OpenAI has been a factor for market pros ever since ChatGPT ignited a mania for AI in late 2022. The subsequent race to beef up computing power has fueled the rise in stocks of chipmakers suchas Nvidia and cloud-computing providers such as Oracle Corp. Yet while fears about AI’s disruptive potential have long been present, they’ve mostly been theoretical. That’s starting to change.

OpenAI is looking for new ways to leverage ChatGPT’s more than 700 million users, with the vast costs of running the business far outweighing revenue generated from subscriptions. The company had $4.3 billion in revenue in the first half of 2025 but still lost $2.5 billion, according to the Information.

The startup has developed AI-based tools used internally that can help streamline research, make contract documents searchable, personalize responses for sales leads and handle customer support, Chief Commercial Officer Giancarlo Lionetti wrote on Sept. 29.

The post sent software stocks including Klaviyo Inc., DocuSign Inc., HubSpot Inc., Atlassian Corp. and ZoomInfo Technologies Inc. tumbling, with each falling more than 9% last week. A Goldman Sachs basket of software-as-a-service stocks notched its worst week in two months with a 3.3% decline.

Of course, there are plenty who view the potential threat from OpenAI and other AI startups as overblown. OpenAI’s release of a social app last week for making and sharing AI-generated videos didn’t have the same effect among social media stocks. While Meta Platforms Inc. underperformed last week, the shares of Snapchat owner Snap Inc. rose more than 3%.

While there is risk of disruption to software makers from the technology, “the negative stock reactions appear disconnected to the fundamentals,” Bank of America analysts led by Brad Sills wrote in a note to clients Thursday.

Even so, OpenAI’s influence in the stock market is likely to grow alongside its expansion, even if it remains privately held, according to Kevin Cook, senior strategist at Zacks Investment Research.

“OpenAI will be looked back on as one of the most influential companies in the AI transformation, and it is certainly an odd situation for a private company to have so much impact,” Cook said. OpenAI “can be more agile and creative, and that leads to the ripple effect we see in other companies, both good and bad.”

Vlastelica writes for Bloomberg.