Anthropic gains ground as OpenAI navigates shifting AI sentiment

At the HumanX AI conference in San Francisco this week, industry sentiment showed signs of shifting. There is a perception that OpenAI has lost its footing and seems increasingly unsure of its next steps, even as competitor Anthropic gains traction among business users. Attendees and vendors at the event frequently highlighted Anthropic’s Claude chatbot, while some data suggests that Anthropic is catching up to OpenAI among business users. The discussions at the conference focused heavily on how agentic AI—defined as AI systems that can perform tasks autonomously—is changing the landscape of modern business.

Despite its recent $122 billion funding round and upcoming IPO plans, OpenAI is actively defending its market position amid these shifting perceptions. The company launched a new $100 subscription tier for ChatGPT. The move seems clearly designed to spur broader use of the tool and retain users as competitor Anthropic gains traction.

The competitive pressure comes alongside public scrutiny of OpenAI’s leadership. During the conference, OpenAI board chair and Sierra CEO Bret Taylor defended CEO Sam Altman. The defense followed a recent profile in the New Yorker that questioned whether the company’s CEO, Sam Altman, was trustworthy or not. Taylor noted that Altman is one of the most visible leaders and executives in the world, adding that those who want to seek out detractors for him will find them, and they will be very vocal about it. Taylor dismissed the criticisms, stating: “I think Sam’s remarkable. I think he’s a remarkable leader of AI, and I really trust his character as someone who’s worked with him.”

The rapid pace of technological change continues to reshape the industry’s focus. Srinivas Narayanan, OpenAI’s CTO of B2B applications, emphasized the speed of this transition during a panel discussion. Narayanan explained that the industry is in an incredible moment in technology where people are looking forward to something new every month, and sometimes every day. He pointed out that while people have been using assistive coding—which refers to AI tools that help developers write code—over the last year, the entire field has changed in just the last few months.

Why it matters

The industry is shifting from general chatbots to agentic AI, and OpenAI is facing its first real test of market dominance as competitors like Anthropic gain traction with enterprise users.