OpenAI gains market share from Anthropic in AI price war

A price war in the artificial intelligence sector is shifting market share toward OpenAI. Data from the OpenRouter platform indicates that OpenAI has nearly closed the spending gap with Anthropic among companies using both providers. While Anthropic held approximately three-quarters of the spending at the start of the year, the two rivals split usage almost evenly in September.

This shift is largely attributed to OpenAI’s aggressive pricing strategies for its GPT-5.6 lineup, including an 80 percent price reduction for its smallest model, Luna, and a 20 percent reduction for its midsize model, Terra. As corporate AI spending increases, many businesses are opting for a combination of providers, utilizing cheaper models for routine tasks like summarization to manage costs.

Anthropic is currently facing operational challenges, including capacity shortages and outages driven by high demand for Claude Code. Additionally, the company has faced criticism regarding its 30-day user data retention policy, leading it to grant some customers more control over stored data.