The Information reported this week on an OpenAI campaign that wins business by undercutting Anthropic on price, at levels well outside ordinary dealmaking. Anthropic’s momentum cooling between the second and third quarters, per an investor memo, suggests the offer is converting.
Take coding. Rippling’s Parker Conrad now routes 52% of coding work to OpenAI, up from 16%, while Anthropic slipped from 57% to 18%.
Replit defected over a deal worth more than $100 million a year after a cut exceeding 30%. Jonathan Cornelissen, who runs DataCamp, saw spending fall somewhere between 80% and 90%.
One American bank, holding more than $7 billion, ended up with seating for 500 staff, double its prior count, without a bigger bill. Its per-seat rate sits under $7, against a sticker price of $20 or higher.
Two forces drive the numbers. OpenAI is deliberately surrendering margin to seize share, yet some savings are real, since its Sol and Luna families run on leaner models and cheaper infrastructure.
Chinese challengers squeeze both vendors, with DeepSeek and Kimi matching Western capability far more cheaply.
Buyers should read the landscape accordingly, because renewals negotiated now land in a contest where the top two labs openly undercut one another.
