From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, Anthropic has stolen all of OpenAI's spotlight.
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In just one year, the balance of power in the AI industry has quietly shifted. OpenAI, once a dominant force in the investment circle, is now facing a comprehensive challenge from Anthropic—from enterprise market share to secondary market valuation, from reputation among venture capitalists to public opinion on social platforms, Anthropic is eroding OpenAI’s leading position in almost every dimension.
This shift in sentiment was amplified to the extreme at the HumanX Artificial Intelligence Conference held in San Francisco this week. According to Business Insider, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs attending the event almost reached a consensus: Anthropic is the new darling of Silicon Valley.
Roseanne Winsek of Renegade Partners bluntly stated, “Last year in Las Vegas, OpenAI felt like the clear winner, but now Anthropic seems to be several lengths ahead.” Meanwhile, Anthropic announced its annual recurring revenue (ARR) had surpassed $30 billion, overtaking OpenAI’s previously reported $25 billion, becoming the highest-revenue AI unicorn in the world.
The flow of market funds tells the story even more clearly. According to Bloomberg, Anthropic’s valuation in the secondary market has surpassed OpenAI. Data circulating on social platforms shows Anthropic’s private market valuation is around $863.6 billion, while OpenAI’s is about $846.1 billion. In addition, OpenAI’s old shares are encountering unprecedented indifference in the secondary market, while buyers line up to acquire Anthropic shares.
Silicon Valley’s Winds Shift: Anthropic Takes Center Stage
This year’s HumanX Conference is twice the size of last year, with about 6,700 attendees paying more than $4,000 per ticket. Yet, unlike last year’s gambling atmosphere in Las Vegas casinos with everyone betting on OpenAI, this year at Moscone Center in San Francisco, Anthropic is the focal point of discussion.
Jared Quincy Davis, founder and CEO of AI cloud platform Mithril, stated,
"They (Anthropic) have strong momentum. Obviously, they focus on enterprise market, cutting-edge capabilities, and code generation, deliberately avoiding certain consumer scenarios—all the right decisions."
Halfway through the conference, Anthropic released its latest model, Mythos, claiming its capabilities are so powerful that it’s not open to the public due to cybersecurity risks, but rather limited to select enterprises through a new initiative called "Project Glasswing". Tomasz Tunguz, founder and general partner of Theory Ventures, commented, "The Mythos model is significant, and there’s tremendous excitement in the market."
By contrast, OpenAI can hardly find open supporters at the conference. Attendees’ doubts about OpenAI center on two points: the puzzling acquisition of the internet talk show TBPN, and CEO Altman’s dealings with the Pentagon, which sparked controversy. Andy Chen, former partner at Coatue and Kleiner Perkins, commented, "Quite a few people disagree with Altman and his actions," and predicted a talent drain at OpenAI.
Secondary Market: Old Share Slow Sales and Reversed Valuation
Signals from the capital market are even more direct. According to a WallStreetCN article, Bloomberg reported that in early April this year, six OpenAI institutional shareholders—including hedge funds and renowned venture capitalists—tried to sell about $600 million worth of OpenAI shares through the secondary market platform Next Round Capital, but after contacting hundreds of institutional buyers, none would take them.
Ken Smythe, founder of Next Round Capital, bluntly said, "We really couldn’t find a single institutional investor willing to take these shares, even though we have hundreds of institutional contacts." He also revealed that buyers told him they had $2 billion in cash, just waiting to buy Anthropic shares.
The same situation is happening on other trading platforms. On SPV trading platforms like Augment and Hiive, investors flock to Anthropic and snub OpenAI. Adam Crawley, co-founder of Augment, stated, everyone thinks Anthropic's valuation can catch up with OpenAI, so they hope to get in as soon as possible.
Valuation data backs up this trend. It is reported that OpenAI’s secondary market trading valuation is about $765 billion, a 10% discount compared to its last round financing; whereas Anthropic’s secondary market valuation has reached $600 billion, more than a 50% premium over the last round. The latest data circulating on social platforms shows Anthropic’s private market valuation has slightly surpassed OpenAI.
Wall Street investment banks' actions are equally intriguing. It is reported that several investment banks, including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, have started selling OpenAI shares to high-net-worth clients, without charging a profit-sharing fee; however, Goldman Sachs still charges the usual 15% to 20% profit-sharing fee for clients investing in Anthropic.
B2B Market: Anthropic has the Overwhelming Advantage
Behind the revenue numbers, deeper structural changes are taking place in the enterprise market.
In the most important B2B track for current AI large models—code generation, Anthropic’s Claude model holds 42% to 54% of the global market share, while OpenAI has only 21%. In the enterprise agent market, Anthropic has 40% share, OpenAI has 27%.
Incremental data reveals the trend even more. Ramp data shows that among enterprises procuring new AI services as of March 2026, 65% chose Anthropic, only 32% chose OpenAI. By April 2026, Anthropic has more than 1,000 enterprise clients spending over $1 million annually, doubling in the past two months, and API calls plus enterprise customization services now account for over 80% of its total revenue.
The cost efficiency gap is equally striking. According to the Wall Street Journal estimates, OpenAI’s annual training costs will reach $125 billion by 2030, while Anthropic will need only about $30 billion, more than four times less. With rapid revenue growth, Anthropic may achieve positive cash flow by 2027, while OpenAI’s profitability timeline remains far off.
In contrast, OpenAI’s only overwhelming advantage is in the consumer segment—ChatGPT currently has over 900 million weekly active users, but more than 98% are free users, consuming massive compute resources with almost no revenue generated. In February 2026, OpenAI tried to introduce ads in ChatGPT, sparking widespread controversy.
On social platforms, user @deedy posted that OpenAI/ChatGPT has started bidding for ads on Claude-related keywords, lamenting “the wheel of fortune turns,” with the post quickly attracting wide attention.
OpenAI’s Counterattack: Compute Advantage and Leaked Memo
Facing external doubts, OpenAI sent shareholders a confidential memo this week, but it was soon leaked. In the memo, OpenAI identifies Anthropic as its biggest competitive threat and emphasizes its leading advantage in compute infrastructure.
The memo states that OpenAI will have 1.9 gigawatts (GW) of computing capacity in 2025, expected to increase to low double digits next year, and reach about 30GW by 2030. By comparison, OpenAI estimates Anthropic will have only 1.4GW by the end of 2025, likely reaching 7–8GW next year. “Even with the highest estimates, our expansion speed is substantially ahead and the gap continues to widen," the memo says.
Anthropic, meanwhile, has reached agreements with Google and Broadcom to secure 5GW of next-generation TPU compute from 2027 onward.
However, the leaked memo itself has exposed OpenAI’s defensive posture to some extent. A company once seen as the absolute leader in the industry now needs to write a special briefing to shareholders explaining why it remains competitive—a telling signal in itself.
This Race is Far From Over
Despite Anthropic’s current momentum, several attendees cautioned against premature conclusions. “Things change too quickly,” Roseanne Winsek said, “OpenAI may come back.” Tomasz Tunguz also remarked, “Every day you wake up and something fundamental has changed.”
OpenAI’s fundraising power remains strong. In its latest completed $122 billion round, Amazon contributed $50 billion, Nvidia $30 billion, both not purely financial investors but strategically locked in returns through compute supply and cloud service contracts.
But the market’s logic has undergone a structural transformation. The logic deciding the winner in the AI race is shifting from “who raises most and tells the grandest story” to “who can create value for users with the lowest cost, highest efficiency, and most precise market positioning.” Under this new logic, Anthropic currently has the upper hand.
Risk Warning and DisclaimerThe market involves risks and investments require caution. This article does not constitute personal investment advice and does not take into account individual users’ particular investment goals, financial status, or needs. Users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions in this article suit their specific situation. Investments made accordingly are at one’s own risk. ```