A chart for business school walls

Let me tell you about a chart that should be hanging in every business school in America. In December 2025, OpenAI was getting 60% of first-time enterprise AI spend. Anthropic was at 40%.

Roughly neck and neck.

By February 2026, 𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸𝘀 𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿, Anthropic was at 73%.

OpenAI had collapsed to 26.7%.

Ten weeks. The same product category. 𝗔 𝟰𝟲-𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴.

One of the most interesting business stories of the decade. Almost nobody is telling it correctly.

𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗴𝗼𝘁 𝘄𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴.

Ramp's data showed OpenAI at 36.8% of businesses, Anthropic at 16.7%. OpenAI dominates ran everywhere.

Except Ramp skews toward startups and SMBs, the people who put everything on a corporate card. IBM doesn't expense Claude that way. Travelers, who just rolled Claude to 10,000 employees doesn't appear in Ramp at all. The actual enterprise contracts were off-screen.

The market read the headline. The enterprise story was elsewhere.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿? 16% of businesses were paying for both OpenAI and Anthropic. A year ago? Just 8%

And 𝗰𝗵𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 at 4%. Businesses weren't cancelling OpenAI. They were adding Anthropic as the second, more serious subscription. Which sounds like second place. Until you realize markets don't stay in the buy both phase forever.

Whoever wins first-time buyers wins the consolidation round. That number came in at 73% for Anthropic. The second subscription became the first choice.

𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗔𝗜'𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲? An all-hands where leadership called Anthropic's success a wake-up call and announced a bold new focus on enterprise and coding tools.

Which is what Anthropic has been doing for two years.

OpenAI has 900M users, $20B in revenue, and an $8B net loss, with $115B in projected cumulative losses through 2029. Anthropic added $6B in February alone and is profitable by 2028.

Meanwhile, 𝗠𝗶𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗼𝗳𝘁, who invested $13B in OpenAI and saved Sam Altman's career is reportedly weighing a lawsuit over a $50B Amazon deal.

Every partner who saves Sam Altman eventually becomes the next constraint to route around.

Which brings us to 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗱𝘂𝗹𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗺. Anthropic's safety positioning is real, I mean... they went to court over it. But...the head of their safety team still resigned in February, writing that values weren't governing actions.

OpenAI 𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗮 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 and found a market.
Anthropic 𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗮 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 and found an era.

Consumer AI is abundant. 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗲.

Anthropic turned "we won't do the scary thing" into a repeatable commercial signal: IBM, Deloitte, Claude Code, a 2026 IPO narrative, and Katy Perry drawing a heart on the $214.99 subscription page for 2.8 million views.

Oh, and Katy is suing Anthropic btw. For the lyrics Claude reproduced without asking. Still drew the heart anyway! Roar!

OpenAI invented this era.
Anthropic is inheriting it.