In an unexpected turn of events, Anthropic, the AI research lab, has surpassed OpenAI in market share for business spending as reported by Ramp. By the end of May, Anthropic secured $65 billion in funding, achieving a remarkable valuation of $965 billion, outpacing OpenAI. As it stepped into June, the company filed confidential documents for an IPO, buoyed by its first profitable quarter.
However, the company found itself at odds with the Trump administration last Friday when it received a letter demanding a ban on non-American access to its cutting-edge models, including Anthropic employees. This move affected the launch of its latest high-profile models, the limited-release Mythos 5 and the newly public Fable 5. The directive stemmed from an obscure export control regulation, though the specifics remain ambiguous. Speculations suggest that hackers had managed to circumvent Fable 5's security measures designed to protect Mythos' unique capabilities.
This escalating tension follows Anthropic's earlier refusal to allow government utilization of its models for mass surveillance or autonomous weaponry, leading the Trump administration to label the company as a supply-chain risk in March. Surprisingly, this controversy has not hindered Anthropic's sales; rather, it might be enhancing them. According to Ara Kharazian, Ramp's lead economist, the negative attention could actually bolster Anthropic's public image. "If anything, it’ll probably boost them," Kharazian stated. He emphasized that their best sales month coincided with the Department of Defense branding them a supply-chain risk, inferring that a model being labeled as 'too dangerous' may elevate its appeal.
Ramp's findings indicate that while we can't gauge the full financial ramifications of pulling Mythos and Fable 5 from circulation, there is considerable usage of Anthropic's Opus models among its growing business clientele. In May alone, Anthropic's share of AI subscriptions from businesses increased by 2.5 percentage points to 41%, while OpenAI's remained stagnant at 39.5%. Although OpenAI continues to outpace Anthropic in overall consumer usage, the data highlights a promising trajectory for Anthropic's business model amid ongoing controversies. The majority of business expenditure is directed toward API usage for functionalities like coding, where Anthropic's Claude Code has been making significant strides.
