Anthropic's business AI share climbs despite Trump administration restrictions
Anthropic overtook OpenAI in business AI spending in May, while a White House order barred non-U.S. users from its newest models, a move that analysts say could further boost its corporate adoption.
Anthropic reported its strongest month for business adoption in May, surpassing OpenAI with a 41% share of AI subscriptions paid by companies, according to data from expense-management platform Ramp. The lab also raised $6.5 billion at a $965 billion valuation and filed confidential paperwork for an initial public offering following its first profitable quarter.
The Trump administration issued a letter demanding that Anthropic block non-American users from its latest models, Mythos 5 and the recently released Fable 5, effectively removing those products from the market. The order cited concerns over export controls and potential security vulnerabilities, though the precise rationale was not disclosed.
Despite the restriction, Ramp’s lead economist Ara Kharazian said the controversy may reinforce Anthropic’s reputation among enterprise customers. > "If anything, it’ll probably boost them," Kharazian told TechCrunch. "Anthropic’s best month on record, as far as business adoption, was the month that the Department of Defense labeled them a supply-chain risk. There’s a lot of aura that comes with your model specifically being named too dangerous to use."
Ramp’s analysis, covering spending from more than 70,000 businesses, shows continued growth in usage of Anthropic’s Opus models, particularly the newer Opus 4.8 version released in late May. While the platform cannot fully quantify the financial impact of withdrawing Mythos and Fable 5, it notes that a significant portion of corporate AI spend is on API calls for coding tasks, where Anthropic’s Claude Code is highly regarded.
OpenAI’s share of business AI subscriptions remained steady at 39.5% in May, and it continues to dominate consumer usage, according to separate market data. The ongoing regulatory dispute may affect Anthropic’s IPO timeline, as public-market investors often view government controversies as a risk factor.