OpenAI Gains Ground on Anthropic in Business Spend

According to recent transaction data from corporate expense management firm Ramp, OpenAI is accelerating its growth among U.S. businesses in the third quarter of 2024, narrowing the lead held by rival Anthropic. The data, which tracks over 70,000 American businesses, shows that Anthropic originally overtook OpenAI in May with a 41% market share compared to OpenAI's 39%. By July, Anthropic had expanded its lead to nearly 44%, while OpenAI held nearly 40%. However, OpenAI's recent third-quarter surge threatens to disrupt this hierarchy before the quarter ends.

Ramp economist Ara Kharazian attributed OpenAI's recent momentum to its GPT-5.6 Sol model, noting on social media that it is "increasingly the choice for developers." Conversely, Anthropic's high-end Fable 5 model faced adoption hurdles. Kharazian pointed out that Fable 5 disappointed users due to its high pricing and strict regulatory data retention policies. Specifically, Anthropic drew criticism from users after warning them that it must retain their data for 30 days to comply with regulatory requirements.

Despite the intense rivalry, the broader enterprise AI market continues to expand. Ramp reported that the share of its customer base paying for AI services climbed past 50% in March and reached nearly 56% by July. This rising tide suggests that both companies are growing their overall revenues even as they trade market share.

For AI developers and enterprise buyers, this shifting landscape highlights the lack of brand loyalty in corporate AI commitments. Organizations are highly willing to switch providers as new models debut or policies change. Practitioners must remain agile, designing flexible architectures that allow them to easily swap underlying models like GPT-5.6 Sol and Fable 5 depending on cost, performance, and data privacy terms.