Recent reports highlight a notable shift in the AI race between Anthropic and OpenAI. According to a Wall Street Journal report from late April 2026, OpenAI fell short of several internal goals: It missed its target of 1 billion weekly active users for ChatGPT by the end of 2025. It also missed its yearly revenue target for ChatGPT, partly due to Google's Gemini gaining significant market share late in the year.

In early 2026, OpenAI missed multiple monthly revenue targets, with rivals-particularly Anthropic-gaining ground in coding and enterprise segments. This has raised internal concerns, including from CFO Sarah Friar, about whether revenue growth can support OpenAI's massive data-center and compute commitments reportedly hundreds of billions in future spending.

OpenAI has pushed back on the framing, calling aspects of the coverage overstated or clickbait, but the misses align with broader signs of slowing consumer momentum and intensifying competition. OpenAI's last major funding valued it at ~$852 billion; a $122B round, making it one of the most valuable private companies ever.

Secondary market trading has hovered around $880B recently. Anthropic has shown strong growth, especially in enterprise and developer tools:Its annualized revenue run rate reportedly surged dramatically-from around $9B late 2025 to figures in the $30B+ range by early 2026 in some reports with claims of even higher momentum.

On secondary markets like Forge Global, Anthropic's implied valuation hit ~$1 trillion in April 2026, surpassing OpenAI's trading levels at the time. This reflects high investor demand for Anthropic shares, with some platforms showing it trading at a premium to OpenAI despite a much lower primary valuation from its February 2026 round ~$380B post a $30B raise.

This secondary market flip is what headlines often refer to-investors appear more bullish on Anthropic's trajectory, growth rate, and positioning in higher-value segments like enterprise coding, where it has reportedly won significant share from OpenAI. Some reports note Anthropic considering even larger raises at valuations approaching or exceeding $900B.

OpenAI still leads substantially ~$852B vs. Anthropic's ~$380B. Sentiment has favored Anthropic lately due to perceived faster growth, better enterprise traction, and perhaps a bargain multiple relative to hype around OpenAI. These are private company figures-highly volatile, based on limited share trades, and not the same as public market caps.

AI valuations overall remain extremely stretched, with massive burn rates and compute costs for both. The consumer chatbot space; ChatGPT vs. Claude vs. Gemini is fragmenting. Google has scale advantages; Anthropic is executing well on safety-focused branding and enterprise reliability; OpenAI still has enormous distribution and brand lead but faces execution pressure ahead of a potential IPO.

Both companies and the broader frontier AI sector are spending enormous sums on inference and training. Sustained revenue growth is critical to justify the capex. Missed targets amplify scrutiny on unit economics-many models are still loss-making at scale.
The WSJ report contributed to short-term dips in AI-related stocks, as investors questioned the pace of monetization.

This doesn't mean OpenAI is in serious trouble-it's still the category leader by most usage metrics-but it underscores a maturing, more competitive market where enterprise adoption, margins, and efficient scaling matter more than raw hype or early consumer wins. Anthropic's rise shows there's no guaranteed winner-takes-all outcome yet.

The AI race remains dynamic: technical progress, model releases, regulatory shifts, and actual profitability will matter far more long-term than any single month's secondary trading blip. Both companies are pushing boundaries, which benefits users and the field overall.