Will Anthropic, OpenAI Or Google Win AI?
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In 2004, there were several search engines. Within a few years, there was one. Google still handles about 9 of every 10 searches. That’s why it’s worth $3.4 trillion.
The AI Scoreboard
Will AI work the same way? Here’s the scoreboard today.
| Player | AI revenue signal | What it also does |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | $65B a year run-rate (July); $100–120B expected by December (August view) | Buys compute from Amazon, Google, Microsoft and SpaceX |
| OpenAI | About $50B run-rate (late September); aiming for $70B by year-end | About $10B a quarter flows through Microsoft deals |
| Gemini app: 1B users; Cloud: $30.7B a quarter, up 103% | Owned about 14% of Anthropic in 2025 filings; sells it chips | |
| Microsoft | Azure: $33.2B a quarter, up 48% | Big OpenAI stake; sells compute to Anthropic too |
| SpaceX (xAI, Grok) | Grok: reportedly about $0.5B a year | Rents compute to Anthropic: up to about $3.1B a month at full capacity |
Notice the last column. Everyone is selling to everyone. Anthropic buys computers from four of its rivals. Google and Amazon own big pieces of it. Musk’s SpaceX is set to make far more renting chips to Anthropic than it makes from its own chatbot. This isn’t a race with one finish line. It’s a marketplace.
Why Search Had One Winner
Why did search end with one winner? Three reasons. More searches made Google’s results better, which brought more searches. Advertisers went where the users were. And Google paid to be the default everywhere. Each advantage fed the others.
AI has weaker versions of these. A company can switch its AI model with a few lines of code. But it’s getting stickier. Anthropic’s customers now spend about nine times what they did a year ago, and once an AI agent runs your billing or writes your code, swapping it is a project, not a click.
Then there’s price. The cost of running a given level of AI keeps falling fast. Anthropic’s filing says it buys computing 12 to 18 months in advance, a bet that demand grows faster than prices fall. When prices fall faster than demand grows, profits get competed away. Airlines learned that. So did PC makers.
That’s the risk for anyone holding a lot of AI stock: when the race shifts, prices move fast. Nvidia fell 63% in 2022, just before its biggest run ever. If you have $1 million or more invested, a Trefis partner firm can help you balance growth with steadier holdings.
Who’s Making Money Now
So who’s making money right now? Compare one quarter. Google Cloud earned $11.1 billion of operating profit in Q3. Anthropic, the fastest-growing AI company on Earth, earned $974 million in its best reported quarter. The landlord is out-earning the star tenant about 11 to 1.
AI probably won’t have a Google. It will have an AWS, an Azure and a Google Cloud. Cloud computing never got a single winner; it got three, all very profitable, because the bills were big and switching was hard. AI’s model companies may end up the same way: three or four big ones, healthy but not monopoly margins. The safest profits, for now, belong to whoever owns the chips and the data centers.
What would change our mind? One model pulling far ahead for a year or more, so that businesses stop shopping around. Watch the enterprise market share numbers and each company’s gross margin. If one leader’s margin rises while prices fall, that’s a moat forming.
For what this means for each stock, see Buy Google Stock Or The Anthropic IPO? and Can Anthropic 10x Again?
Who Wins AI Shouldn’t Decide Your Retirement
Nvidia fell 63% in 2022. Same company, same AI story. Have $1 million or more invested? See how much of it rides on one bet in a free 15-minute call with a Trefis partner firm.
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