OpenAI gaining on Anthropic despite losing Q2 revenue lead for first time

Anthropic generated more than $11.5 billion in preliminary revenue during the second quarter of 2026, surpassing OpenAI's $6.7 billion for the same period and marking the first time the younger AI company has overtaken its larger rival in quarterly sales, according to documents viewed by Bloomberg News.cnbc+1

The results, first reported by CNBC on August 15, represent a more than 14-fold increase from the $787 million Anthropic earned in Q2 2025 and more than double its $4.73 billion in first-quarter revenue. Anthropic also achieved positive adjusted operating income for the first time, a milestone that transforms the company from a cash-burning startup into an operationally viable business.ua+3

A Widening Gap

OpenAI's Q2 revenue of $6.7 billion, reported by The Wall Street Journal News Corp ↘ 0.03% on August 17, grew 18% sequentially from $5.7 billion in Q1 — a pace that pales next to Anthropic's quarter-over-quarter doubling. The Journal described OpenAI's growth as "tepid" relative to its rival.kucoin+1

By the end of July, Anthropic's annualized revenue run rate had surpassed $65 billion, according to a subsequent Bloomberg report. The company has filed a confidential S-1 and is targeting an IPO later this year with Morgan Stanley ↘ 0.55%, Goldman Sachs The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. ↘ 0.36%, and JPMorgan ↘ 0.84% leading the underwriting.forkast+2

OpenAI's CFO Sarah Friar said the company's July annualized recurring revenue had already exceeded its entire Q2 total, crediting new models including GPT-5.6 Sol and its Codex coding tool.beincrypto+1

No Lock-In Yet

Despite Anthropic's lead, recent data from corporate spending platform Ramp suggests the race remains fluid. Among more than 70,000 U.S. businesses tracked by Ramp, 43.5% paid for Anthropic products in July compared with 39.7% for OpenAI — but OpenAI has been growing faster in Q3, according to Quartz.qz

Ramp economist Ara Kharazian attributed part of the shift to Anthropic's new Fable 5 model underperforming on adoption, while OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol has gained developer traction. Fable 5 accounted for only 6% of tokens businesses purchased from Anthropic in July, compared with 25% of OpenAI tokens going to GPT-5.6 Sol.qz

"Vendor stickiness is near zero," the Pondero newsletter noted on August 21. "Raw model performance decides your bill, not platform lock-in".buttondown