Anthropic Surpasses OpenAI in Business AI Market, Raises $65B as Government Restrictions Mount

Summary

Anthropic has achieved a series of historic milestones in May and June 2026, surpassing OpenAI for the first time in business-spending market share while simultaneously raising $65 billion at a $965 billion valuation and filing confidential IPO paperwork. The company reported its first-ever profitable quarter, cementing its position as a major player in the enterprise AI market. The surge comes amid mounting friction with the Trump administration, which issued a letter in early June demanding Anthropic ban non-American access to its latest models, Mythos 5 and Fable 5, citing export control concerns. While this effectively forced Anthropic to withdraw its newest flagship models from the market, the restriction appears to have had little impact on business adoption. According to Ramp's analysis of spending data from over 70,000 businesses, Anthropic's share of AI subscriptions reached 41% in May, a 2.5 percentage point gain, compared to OpenAI's flat performance at 39.5%. Businesses continue to heavily utilize Anthropic's Opus models, particularly the recently released Opus 4.8 version, for coding and API-based tasks. Ironically, as Ramp's lead economist suggests, the government's antagonistic stance may actually enhance Anthropic's appeal, with the company's strongest business month coinciding with its March designation as a supply-chain risk by the Defense Department.

• Despite government restrictions, business adoption of Anthropic's models continues to grow, with customers heavily utilizing Claude Opus and the newly released Opus 4.8 for coding and enterprise use cases
• Government controversy may paradoxically benefit Anthropic's business appeal, as the company's record business adoption month coincided with its designation as a supply-chain risk by the Pentagon