The dynamics of the artificial intelligence market are undergoing dramatic changes due to a new player increasingly siphoning users from the established leader. Claude 3.7 Sonnet, Anthropic’s latest model, has attracted over 8 million new users in just a few weeks since its launch, with former ChatGPT users constituting an estimated 62% of this influx according to market analyses. This unprecedented migration is reshaping the power balance in the generative AI industry and calling into question OpenAI’s dominant position. As user preferences shift toward Anthropic’s offering, fundamental questions arise about the technological and strategic factors driving this market realignment.
Breakthrough Technology Under Claude 3.7’s Hood
Anthropic’s flagship model represents a fundamental breakthrough in large language model architecture. Claude 3.7 Sonnet is built on the entirely new Constitutional AI (CAI) architecture, which according to company representatives has been built from the ground up to eliminate limitations of previous generation language models.
“We didn’t improve an existing model—we redesigned it from scratch,” claims Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s CEO and former research director at OpenAI. “Traditional LLMs have fundamental limitations related to positional sequential processing. In Claude 3.7, we’ve implemented a novel approach based on graph structures that radically transforms how the model processes and ‘understands’ information.”
Industry specialists confirm that Claude 3.7’s architecture represents a significant step forward. “This is the first model that effectively overcomes the ‘hallucination’ problem to such a significant degree,” comments Dr. Elena Rodriguez from the AI Research Institute. “In our tests, Claude 3.7 achieved over 96% accuracy in fact verification, compared to 87% for GPT-4 Turbo and 91% for Google Gemini 1.5 Pro.”
Training Scale That Changes the Game
Anthropic doesn’t disclose the exact number of parameters in its model, but according to industry sources, Claude 3.7 was trained on a corpus of data exceeding 15 trillion tokens—almost twice the estimated 8 trillion tokens used to train GPT-4. The company has invested in building its own computational infrastructure based on specialized TPU (Tensor Processing Units) processors designed in collaboration with Google.
Particularly impressive is Anthropic’s approach to training data quality. Leaks from former employees indicate that the company has developed its own methodology for evaluating and filtering data, internally named the “Data Distillation Pipeline.” This process engages both automated tools and human experts who assess the quality, reliability, and diversity of sources.
“The quality of training data is of fundamental importance,” explains anonymously one of the people involved in the Claude project. “It’s better to have 5 trillion high-quality tokens than 20 trillion tokens of average quality. Our filtering process eliminates over 75% of potential training data as insufficiently valuable.”
Innovative Safety Mechanisms
Anthropic has implemented in Claude 3.7 its own version of Constitutional AI—a model trained not only for performance but also for safety and alignment with specific values. This mechanism, called by the company the “constitutional core,” functions as an internal security system that teaches the model to independently evaluate the ethical implications of its responses.
“The alignment method through reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) used by OpenAI has fundamental limitations,” argues Jack Clark, co-founder of Anthropic. “Our Constitutional AI process introduces an additional layer of learning from the model’s own responses, which yields significantly better safety results without compromising performance.”
This approach appears to deliver measurable effects in practice. A recent test conducted by the renowned Stanford AI Safety Center showed that Claude 3.7 is 47% less susceptible to malicious exploitation attempts (so-called prompt injection attacks) compared to GPT-4 Turbo, while maintaining greater utility in complex applications.
Mass User Migration – Why Are They Leaving ChatGPT?
The exodus of users from OpenAI’s platform to Anthropic is unprecedented in the young history of generative AI. According to data from analytics firm SensorTower, the number of daily active users (DAU) for ChatGPT fell by 18% in the first quarter of 2025, while Claude recorded a 215% increase during the same period.
Consistency and Reliability Issues
Claude’s advantage over ChatGPT is particularly evident in two key areas: consistency and reliability. Users widely report that Claude 3.7 delivers more predictable and consistent results for repetitive queries.
“Consistency is a critical factor for business applications,” explains Maria Chen, an analyst from Forrester Research. “Enterprises integrating AI into their processes need predictable results. Claude 3.7 offers a 34% higher consistency coefficient in our comparative tests.”
This difference stems partly from different architectural approaches. ChatGPT uses a technique called “temperature sampling,” which introduces an element of randomness to generated responses. Anthropic has taken a different route, developing a mechanism called “Deterministic Core Processing,” which ensures greater predictability while maintaining the model’s creativity.
Availability problems have also contributed to the user exodus from OpenAI. Between January and March 2025, ChatGPT experienced 16 significant service interruptions, while Claude recorded only 3 such incidents. Particularly costly for OpenAI’s reputation was the 9-hour ChatGPT outage on February 8, 2025, which affected business users during peak working hours.
Conflicts Over Adult Content
OpenAI has long struggled with criticism for its overly restrictive approach to adult content. Recent changes introduced in February 2025 further tightened these restrictions, causing frustration among content creators, writers, and artists.
“ChatGPT has become practically useless for writers creating adult content,” claims Alex Rodriguez, author of bestselling novels. “This isn’t about illegal or harmful content, but completely legal scenarios intended for adult audiences. Claude has found the golden mean here—it blocks truly harmful content but allows adult creativity within responsible boundaries.”
The Verge recently conducted a detailed comparison, testing both models on generating 50 different literary scenarios containing adult content. Claude 3.7 generated responses for 72% of queries, while ChatGPT only managed 31%, rejecting the rest as potentially problematic.
Lower Latency and Faster Responses
Response speed is another factor in Claude’s advantage. Tests conducted by “AI Benchmark” magazine showed that Claude 3.7’s average response time is 1.2 seconds, while GPT-4 Turbo needs an average of 2.8 seconds to process a similar query.
For an individual user, this difference might seem small, but for complex conversations consisting of dozens of exchanges, the difference becomes significant. Programmers using AI models as assistants when writing code especially appreciate this.
“A 3-second thinking pause completely breaks your rhythm,” claims Ryan Goldman, a senior developer at Accenture consulting firm. “With Claude, I can have a dialogue at a pace similar to talking with a team colleague. This fundamentally changes the experience of working with AI.”
Behind the Revolution – What’s Really Behind Anthropic’s Success?
The spectacular rise in Claude 3.7’s popularity didn’t come from nowhere. Behind Anthropic’s success are several key factors that together created ideal conditions for challenging OpenAI’s dominance.
Strategic Partnerships with Google and Amazon
One of Anthropic’s most important assets is its skillful building of strategic alliances. The company secured impressive funding from Google ($5.3 billion) and Amazon ($4 billion)—two tech giants with their own interest in undermining the position of OpenAI, which closely collaborates with Microsoft.
“This is a classic example of the ‘enemy of my enemy is my friend’ strategy,” comments Marcus Thompson, an analyst at Morgan Stanley. “Google and Amazon see Anthropic as a potential partner who can balance the Microsoft-OpenAI alliance. This investment is not just money—it’s access to enormous cloud resources, computing power, and most importantly, data.”
Particularly interesting is the partnership with Amazon Web Services, which goes far beyond a simple financial investment. Under the agreement, Amazon has integrated Claude with the AWS platform, offering it as an “AI-as-a-Service” to its corporate clients. This gives Anthropic immediate access to thousands of potential business customers.
Research-Oriented Organizational Culture
Anthropic, founded in 2021 by former OpenAI employees including Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei, has positioned itself from the beginning as a research organization focused on “safe” artificial intelligence.
“The difference in organizational culture between Anthropic and OpenAI is striking,” claims a former OpenAI engineer who moved to Anthropic in 2023. “OpenAI has become a corporation focused on profit and monetization, while Anthropic maintains a research laboratory mentality. This attracts the best scientific talents who don’t feel comfortable in an environment dominated by commercial goals.”
This research orientation has allowed Anthropic to attract leading scientists from the AI field, including more than a dozen former employees from DeepMind and OpenAI. Over the past 18 months, Anthropic has published 23 breakthrough scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals, compared to just 7 publications from OpenAI during the same period.
Transparent Communication and User Trust
From the beginning, Anthropic has focused on transparent communication regarding the capabilities and limitations of its models. The company regularly publishes “model cards”—detailed reports on the architecture, training data, and potential limitations of its systems.
“We treat users as intelligent partners, not as consumers who need to be sold a magic solution,” explains Daniela Amodei, COO of Anthropic. “Our community appreciates this honesty, especially after a series of controversies related to unclear communications from OpenAI about their models.”
This transparency also has a technical dimension. Anthropic provides detailed API documentation, usage examples, and edge case analyses, making it easier for developers to integrate with Claude. Developers particularly appreciate clear guidelines regarding “prompt engineering”—the technique of formulating queries to AI models.
OpenAI’s Response – Desperate Moves by the Giant
OpenAI’s reaction to growing competition from Anthropic is multifaceted, but industry analysts describe it as “defensive and belated.” The company is taking a series of actions aimed at stemming the outflow of users.
Price Cuts and New Subscription Plans
In March 2025, OpenAI announced a dramatic 35% price reduction for access to the GPT-4 Turbo API and introduced a new, cheaper ChatGPT Plus subscription plan for $15 per month (compared to the previous $20). The company presented these changes as “democratizing access to AI,” but industry analysts unanimously interpret them as a response to competition from Anthropic.
“This is a classic price war,” comments Janice Wu, an analyst at Jefferies. “The problem is that OpenAI is starting this war from a worse cost position. GPT-4 is more expensive to maintain and host than Claude 3.7, so every price reduction hits OpenAI’s margins harder.”
Internal documents obtained by Bloomberg suggest that the cost of a single query to GPT-4 Turbo is about $0.015, while an analogous query to Claude 3.7 costs Anthropic around $0.009. This difference in cost structure gives Anthropic greater flexibility in pricing policy.
Accelerated Development of GPT-5
According to industry reports, OpenAI has significantly accelerated work on GPT-5, its next flagship model. Originally planned for late 2025, the model is now set to debut in the third quarter, representing a dramatic acceleration of the development timeline.
“Internal materials suggest that OpenAI is working practically 24/7 on GPT-5,” claims a source close to the company. “The problem is that the accelerated timeline may lead to compromises in terms of model quality and safety.”
This time pressure raises concerns among AI researchers. A group of over 30 leading scientists published an open letter in April 2025, calling on OpenAI not to accelerate the release of GPT-5 at the expense of safety procedures and testing.
Attempts to Regain Lost Users
OpenAI has also launched a “Welcome Back” campaign, offering former paying users three months of free access to the ChatGPT Plus plan if they decide to return to the platform. Simultaneously, the company has significantly increased its marketing budget, launching its first-ever television campaign during the Super Bowl final in February 2025.
“These actions are more reactive than strategic,” assesses Dr. Michael Robertson from Harvard Business School. “OpenAI is trying to buy time, but is not addressing the fundamental problems that prompted users to leave—consistency, reliability, and model flexibility.”
A particularly interesting move is OpenAI’s new partner program, offering developers a 20% commission on revenue generated by applications built on the company’s API. This is a direct response to a similar program from Anthropic, which has been offering developers a 25% revenue share since early 2025.
Implications for the Entire AI Ecosystem
The rivalry between Claude and ChatGPT has far-reaching consequences for the entire artificial intelligence ecosystem, extending far beyond business competition between the two companies.
Market Diversification and Consumer Benefits
Claude’s rising popularity is a positive phenomenon from the end-user perspective. “Competition is always beneficial for consumers,” emphasizes Prof. Hannah Kim from MIT. “For a long time, OpenAI functioned practically as a monopolist in the generative AI space. A strong competitor forces them to innovate, lower prices, and better listen to user needs.”
This new market dynamic is already bringing tangible benefits. Both providers regularly introduce new features, expand context limits, and improve the quality of their models. Over the past three months, both OpenAI and Anthropic have doubled query limits in their subscription plans without raising prices.
Impact on Investments in the AI Industry
Anthropic’s success has also changed the investment landscape. According to PitchBook data, in the first quarter of 2025, AI startups raised funding totaling $12.8 billion, representing a 34% increase compared to the same period last year.
“Investors are looking for the ‘next Anthropic’—a company that could challenge dominant players,” explains Sanjay Patel, a partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. “Startups specializing in AI models optimized for specific industry applications are of particular interest.”
Examples of such specialized startups that recently secured significant funding include Harvey AI (legal model, $200 million in funding), Hippocratic AI (medical model, $175 million), and Graft (developer-focused model, $90 million).
Greater Emphasis on Ethics and AI Safety
The rivalry between Anthropic and OpenAI is also having a positive impact on the development of ethical standards in the industry. Both entities are striving to distinguish themselves through their approach to safety and responsible AI development.
“Anthropic has positioned safety as its main differentiator from the beginning,” notes Dr. Victoria Matthews from the AI Ethics Institute. “This has forced OpenAI to place greater emphasis on ethical issues, which is evident in their recent publications and research initiatives.”
In March 2025, both companies, along with Google DeepMind, Microsoft, and Inflection AI, established the “AI Safety Consortium”—an initiative aimed at developing common safety standards for advanced AI models. This is the first instance of such collaboration between competing companies.
The Future of the Generative AI Market – What’s Next?
Industry experts predict that the intense rivalry between Claude and ChatGPT will shape the generative AI market for years to come, benefiting the entire ecosystem.
Specialization Instead of Universality
According to forecasts from consulting firm Gartner, over the next 2-3 years we will see a shift away from “universal” language models toward specialized systems optimized for specific applications.
“The era of ‘one model fits all’ is coming to an end,” argues Martin Lee, chief analyst at Gartner. “The future belongs to highly specialized models that excel in specific domains, but don’t try to be experts in everything.”
This tendency is already visible in the strategies of both companies. Anthropic is developing Claude variants optimized for the financial sector (Claude Finance), healthcare (Claude Medical), and education (Claude Tutor). OpenAI, meanwhile, is investing in the development of multimodal solutions combining text, image, and sound.
Infrastructure as a Key Challenge
The biggest challenge for both companies remains computational infrastructure. Training and hosting advanced language models requires enormous hardware resources, and the global shortage of AI chips complicates the situation.
“Access to semiconductors will become the main competitive factor in the coming years,” predicts Dr. Emma Chang, an expert in technology supply chains. “Companies like NVIDIA, which produce specialized AI chips, have multi-month delays in fulfilling orders. This can significantly affect the development timelines for new models.”
In response to these challenges, Anthropic has established a strategic partnership with TSMC, the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer, securing priority access to the latest generation of chips. OpenAI, meanwhile, benefits from close collaboration with Microsoft, which has invested billions of dollars in developing its own AI processors.
Government Regulations on the Horizon
The growing popularity of advanced AI models inevitably attracts the attention of regulators. The European Union is already implementing the AI Act, which imposes rigorous requirements on providers of “high-risk” AI systems, and similar initiatives are being considered in the US and China.
“Regulations will be a key factor shaping competition in the coming years,” predicts Lawrence Peterson, a partner at a law firm specializing in tech regulation. “Companies that develop effective compliance methods without significantly limiting the functionality of their models will gain a competitive advantage.”
Anthropic appears to be better prepared for this regulatory future. The company has built its models with transparency and control in mind from the beginning, which may make it easier to adapt to new legal requirements. OpenAI faces the more challenging task of adapting existing systems to the changing regulatory environment.
The Final Chapter Is Just Beginning
The dynamic rivalry between Claude and ChatGPT is only in its initial stage. Both models will evolve, adapting to changing user needs and competitive responses.
“What we’re observing is not a one-time change, but the beginning of a long-term shift in market dynamics,” summarizes Sarah Johnson, research director at IDC. “OpenAI’s monopoly has ended, and the era of healthy competition in generative AI is just beginning. The ultimate beneficiaries will be users, who will receive better, safer, and more affordable AI tools.”
Regardless of which model ultimately gains the larger market share, one thing is certain—the intense rivalry between Anthropic and OpenAI will accelerate innovations and democratize access to advanced artificial intelligence, shaping the technological future for decades to come.