(Bloomberg) — Shares in OpenAI partners such as SoftBank Group Corp. and Oracle Corp. are falling after the Wall Street Journal reported that the AI startup recently failed to meet targets for sales and new users, reviving worries about spending ahead of tech earnings.
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SoftBank tumbled as much as 11% in Tokyo, while CoreWeave Inc., Oracle and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. fell by about 3% in US premarket trading. While OpenAI has struck deals with dozens of firms, markets tend to focus on a smaller subset of major partners including Nvidia Corp., SoftBank, Oracle, Microsoft Corp., Coreweave and AMD as investment proxies for the creator of ChatGPT.
Investors are on high alert for evidence that tech companies are staying committed to previously-announced plans for huge capital expenditure to build out AI infrastructure.
“That’s what the market needs to see to keep the AI narrative intact,” said Amanda Lyons, head of research at Energy Group Capital. “The nuance is that it’s a narrow path: any hint of slowing spend would be taken negatively for the ecosystem, but a sharp step-up would likely raise questions around returns and sustainability.”
A basket of companies connected to OpenAI has underperformed peers significantly in recent months, rising by about 75% since the end of 2024 compared with gains of more than 300% for a similar group of Alphabet Inc.-tied stocks.
OpenAI, once at the forefront of the artificial intelligence frenzy, fell short of several monthly sales targets in 2026 after rival Anthropic PBC gained ground in the coding and enterprise markets, the Journal reported Monday, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.
Perceptions about OpenAI’s leadership shifted last fall after Alphabet’s Gemini AI model and Anthropic’s Claude received broad acclaim. These updates from consumer and business-focused rivals have sparked repeated selloffs in companies considered proxies for OpenAI.
“OpenAI’s growth has been phenomenal since the release of ChatGPT but competitors are stealing a march from both sides,” said Anna Macdonald, investment strategy director at Hargreaves Lansdown.
–With assistance from Ruhell Amin.
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