OpenAI and Stripe Bet Big on AI Economy

Stripe CEO Patrick Collison revealed a dramatic surge in new company formations at his firm's annual conference, describing a parabolic rise in startups joining Stripe's payments platform in recent months. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman attributed the boom to major improvements in AI coding tools, calling it a tidal wave of new users. Both companies are racing to support a new era of agentic commerce, where AI agents autonomously make and receive payments. Stripe launched new tools for agent-driven transactions and struck deals with Google, Meta, and Microsoft, while OpenAI pursues a $600 billion data center buildout to become a global AI infrastructure provider.