One of the bigger storylines in the AI industry this month: Anthropic has overtaken OpenAI on self-reported revenue, according to reporting confirmed by Fortune in early July 2026 — a notable shift in an industry that has been dominated by OpenAI’s brand recognition since ChatGPT’s initial launch.
The Numbers
Anthropic said in May 2026 that it was on course to hit $47 billion in annualized revenue, with a path to profitability arriving a year ahead of its previous guidance. OpenAI, in its most recent disclosure, said it expects to generate between $25 billion and $33 billion in annualized revenue for 2026 — meaningfully behind Anthropic’s trajectory despite OpenAI’s larger overall user base.
Business Subscriptions Are the Key Metric
According to corporate spend data from Ramp, Anthropic overtook OpenAI in business subscriptions as of May 2026. Meanwhile, Similarweb data showed monthly visits to ChatGPT falling below a majority share of the generative AI market for the first time that same month — a signal that enterprise and consumer users alike are increasingly willing to switch between providers rather than defaulting to a single tool.
Claude Code as a Growth Driver
A significant portion of Anthropic’s revenue growth has been attributed to Claude Code, its AI coding agent, which reportedly reached $1 billion in annualized revenue by the end of 2025 and more than doubled to $2.5 billion by February 2026. The product’s strength is credited to a combination of frontier-level agentic coding performance and the enterprise trust built around Anthropic’s safety-focused approach to AI development.
What This Means Going Forward
Both companies are reportedly moving toward public offerings, with OpenAI said to be preparing a confidential IPO filing and Anthropic targeting operating profitability ahead of a potential public listing of its own. The competitive dynamic between the two labs — alongside Google DeepMind, which has also been gaining ground — suggests 2026 is shaping up to be the year the AI industry’s leadership becomes genuinely contested rather than a single-company story.
Bottom Line
The shift in revenue leadership doesn’t mean ChatGPT is going away — it remains the most-used AI assistant by total user count. But it does signal that the market is no longer a one-horse race, and enterprise customers in particular appear increasingly willing to evaluate providers on performance and trust rather than brand recognition alone.
About the Author
