A year ago, it seemed unquestionable: OpenAI was the king of AI, the favorite of investors, the company everyone wanted. But something quietly changed in the market. Now, when you walk through Silicon Valley and talk to venture capitalists, the sentiment is completely different.

Anthropic is not only gaining ground, it is eroding OpenAI’s leadership position in almost all the important dimensions. From the enterprise market share to how Wall Street and private investors view both companies, the balance of power has shifted in a way few expected just twelve months ago.

This week at the HumanX AI conference in San Francisco, the change was evident. Investors and entrepreneurs agreed: Anthropic is the new favorite. A Renegade Partners investor said bluntly: last year in Las Vegas, everyone bet on OpenAI, but now Anthropic seems several steps ahead. And the numbers confirm it. Anthropic just announced that its annual recurring revenue surpassed $30 billion, leaving behind the $25 billion OpenAI had announced.

The most interesting thing is what’s happening in the secondary market. The circulating data shows that Anthropic’s private valuation is already around $863.6 billion, surpassing OpenAI’s $846.1 billion. But here’s the revealing part: while OpenAI’s old shares face unprecedented demand shortages, investors are literally lining up to buy shares of Anthropic.

According to reports, recently six institutional shareholders of OpenAI tried to sell nearly $600 million in shares. The result was surprising: after contacting hundreds of potential buyers, none showed interest. Instead, on platforms like Next Round Capital, investors have $2 billion in cash ready specifically to buy Anthropic. Augment’s co-founder explained it this way: everyone believes Anthropic will reach OpenAI’s valuation, so they want to buy now.

In the enterprise segment, the difference is even more dramatic. Claude from Anthropic controls between 42% and 54% of the global code generation market, while OpenAI has just 21%. In enterprise agents, Anthropic has 40% versus 27% for OpenAI. And growth is accelerating: in March, 65% of companies that hired new AI services chose Anthropic, only 32% chose OpenAI.

What really matters to Wall Street and venture investors is efficiency. According to reports, OpenAI will need $125 billion annually in training costs by 2030, while Anthropic will only require $30 billion. Anthropic could reach positive cash flow by 2027; OpenAI still has no clear horizon for profits.

OpenAI sent a confidential memo to its shareholders this week that was leaked. In it, they recognize Anthropic as their biggest competitive threat. They emphasize their advantage in computing infrastructure: they expect 1.9 gigawatts by 2025 and 30 GW by 2030, while estimating that Anthropic will only have 1.4 GW by the end of 2025. But the leak of the memo itself says a lot: a company once seen as an undisputed leader now needs to explain to its shareholders why it remains competitive.

Of course, this is not decided. OpenAI has massive resources, agreements with Amazon and Nvidia, and the capacity to recover. Things in AI change too quickly. But the market has already changed structurally. Competition is no longer defined by who raises more money or tells the bigger story, but by who creates value for users with lower cost, maximum efficiency, and better market segmentation. In that new logic, Anthropic is leading.