Anthropic Surpasses OpenAI in Business Spending Amid Controversy with Trump Administration
Anthropic has achieved a significant milestone by surpassing OpenAI in business spending market share, despite facing renewed scrutiny from the Trump administration regarding its AI models.
In May, Anthropic, an artificial intelligence lab, achieved a notable milestone by surpassing OpenAI in market share for business spending, according to a report from Ramp. The company raised $65 billion at a valuation of $965 billion at the end of May, also outpacing OpenAI in valuation. Following this success, Anthropic filed confidential paperwork for an initial public offering (IPO), reportedly fueled by its first profitable quarter.
However, on June 2, the Trump administration escalated its conflict with Anthropic by issuing a letter that demanded the company prohibit non-American individuals, including its employees, from accessing its advanced models. This directive specifically targeted the limited-release model Mythos 5 and a more restricted version of Mythos that was made public just three days prior, named Fable 5.
As a result of this demand, Anthropic was compelled to withdraw its latest powerful model from the market entirely. The White House referenced an obscure export control directive in its order, but the precise reasoning behind the ban remains ambiguous. Speculation suggests that hackers may have easily circumvented the security measures intended to safeguard Fable 5's capabilities, which Anthropic had previously marketed as hazardous due to its proficiency in identifying software security flaws.
This situation unfolds against the backdrop of Anthropic’s previous refusal to allow the government to employ its models for mass surveillance of American citizens or for autonomous weaponry. Consequently, in March, the Trump administration designated the company as a supply-chain risk.
Despite this contentious relationship with the government, Anthropic's business sales appear to be thriving. According to Ara Kharazian, the lead economist at Ramp, this latest conflict with the Trump administration may inadvertently benefit Anthropic. Kharazian noted, "If anything, it’ll probably boost them. Anthropic’s best month on record, as far as business adoption, was the month that the Department of Defense labeled them a supply-chain risk. There’s a lot of aura that comes with your model specifically being named too dangerous to use."
Ramp's data, derived from over 70,000 businesses utilizing its platform, indicates a significant increase in the adoption of Anthropic's Opus models, with business usage on the rise. For instance, in May, Anthropic's share of AI subscriptions financed by businesses climbed by 2.5 percentage points to 41%, while OpenAI's share remained relatively stable at 39.5%. It's important to note that while OpenAI maintains a considerable lead in overall consumer usage, as reported by Sensor Tower, Anthropic's growth in the business sector is noteworthy.
The majority of corporate spending is directed toward API calls to the models, which include token usage for tasks such as coding. Anthropic's Claude Code is recognized for its strong capabilities as a coding tool. Although Ramp's data does not always allow for precise identification of the models being utilized by businesses, it does reveal that when model details are accessible, the majority of spending is concentrated on various versions of Claude Opus, particularly the more recent iterations. Notably, Anthropic released a new version, Opus 4.8, in late May.
The Mythos model had a brief presence in the market, having been made available to a limited user base starting in April, while Fable 5 was taken down shortly after its release. The impact of the current tensions with the White House on Anthropic's aspirations to go public remains uncertain, as public investors often approach companies embroiled in government controversies with caution. Nevertheless, the available data suggests that Anthropic's models are gaining traction among businesses now more than ever.
