OpenAI is gaining on Anthropic with business users, new data indicates
- ID
- 16266
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 21 Aug 2026, 6:36 AM
- Fetched
- 21 Aug 2026, 7:08 AM
- Provider
- TechCrunch
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/20/openai-is-gaining-on-anthropic-with-business-users-new-data-indicates/
- Source URL
- https://techcrunch.com/feed/
Summary
- Score
- 5.5
- Created
- 21 Aug 2026, 7:08 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersai_agent_userssaas_founders
What happened
Ramp's expense data from 70,000+ U.S. businesses shows Anthropic holding ~44% market share vs OpenAI's ~40% as of July 2026, but OpenAI is growing faster in Q3 to date. Anthropic first overtook OpenAI in May 2026 (41% to 39%), and the back-and-forth suggests enterprise AI spending is volatile rather than sticky. Ramp economist Ara Kharazian noted that 'GPT-5.6 Sol' is increasingly the choice for developers.
Why it matters
If you're picking an AI provider for a SaaS product or agent pipeline, don't assume lock-in—businesses are switching between OpenAI and Anthropic as each releases new models. The mention of GPT-5.6 Sol as a developer favorite suggests checking whether OpenAI's latest model has closed the coding gap that pushed developers to Claude earlier. For Malaysian founders building on AI APIs, this volatility means you should architect for multi-provider switching rather than committing to one vendor's roadmap.
Discussion angle
Is the churn between OpenAI and Anthropic a sign that model quality is converging, or that businesses are just chasing the newest release? What does this mean for building multi-provider abstraction layers vs. committing to one ecosystem?