American companies have started spending more on OpenAI again. This is according to the latest data from Ramp, a company that issues corporate payment cards and manages business expenses. Its data shows that OpenAI is growing faster than Anthropic among U.S. businesses in the third quarter and is closing part of the gap that had been widening since May. Anthropic still leads, but its advantage has begun to shrink.
Ramp and its metrics
Ramp tracks the spending of more than seventy thousand U.S. companies that process billions of dollars through its cards and payment tools. The sample is heavily weighted toward technology companies and does not cover the entire market. In particular, it excludes large corporations that use other expense management systems. The company also declined to disclose specific amounts and published only percentages. Nevertheless, this provides a rare glimpse into the financial performance of both companies. Until OpenAI and Anthropic move closer to their planned stock market debuts and begin publishing results, such data will remain one of the few indicators of how the two labs are performing.
For a long time, the picture seemed clear. OpenAI led by a wide margin among both companies and ordinary users until May, when it lost the top position among Ramp's paying business customers. At that time, Anthropic reached 41 percent compared with OpenAI's 39 percent, and the creator of ChatGPT has not regained the lead since. The gap widened further in July. Just under 44 percent of the companies tracked were paying for Anthropic's products, compared with roughly 40 percent for OpenAI. Anthropic gained 1.1 percentage points during the month, while OpenAI added only 0.23 points.
It was not until the August data that a reversal emerged. Spending by business customers on OpenAI products is growing 82 percent quarter over quarter, compared with 76 percent for Anthropic. However, there is still one month left until the end of the quarter, which, given the pace of artificial intelligence development, is long enough for the trend to reverse again.
The battle for market share obscures one fact that is good news for both companies. The share of businesses paying for artificial intelligence among Ramp's customers continues to grow steadily. It surpassed 50 percent in March and reached nearly 56 percent in July. By comparison, it was 7.5 percent in January 2023. So even though the two labs are competing for the same customers, revenue should grow for both.
Why companies returned to OpenAI
Ramp economist Ara Kharazian offered an explanation. According to him, the new GPT-5.6 Sol model is particularly well suited to developers. By contrast, Anthropic's Fable 5 model disappointed in terms of both adoption and practical use. This is due to its high price as well as strict data retention requirements imposed on the company by regulators. Users are also frustrated that more complex tasks are being shifted to less capable models, again because of regulators' security concerns.
TechCrunch adds that this is a simplification. Fable is one of Anthropic's more advanced models and is more expensive, but it specializes in a narrower range of tasks than a standard chatbot. Nevertheless, users were unhappy about the warning that the company must retain their data for 30 days.
Pricing also played a role. Just three weeks after releasing its two latest models, OpenAI significantly cut prices. For the Luna model, it reduced the price by 80 percent to $0.20 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens. For the Terra model, the price fell by one-fifth to $2 per million input tokens and $12 per million output tokens.
Anthropic leads in revenue
The share of paying companies is one thing; revenue is another. Anthropic more than doubled its revenue to $11.6 billion in the second quarter and surpassed OpenAI in quarterly sales for the first time. OpenAI reported $6.7 billion, 18 percent more than in the previous quarter. Anthropic also announced a modest operating profit, while OpenAI's loss widened. Both companies are aiming for planned stock market debuts in the coming months.
And it is precisely in this respect that Ramp's data is most concerning. Companies are clearly willing to switch between providers based on who has just released a new model. Such volatility should prompt investors in both companies to consider just how stable corporate spending on artificial intelligence really is.
Sources: inc.com, qz.com and thedailystar.net
