Artificial intelligence startups OpenAI and Anthropic are setting their sights on enterprise customers this year as they look to gain revenue, users and market share.
In separate interviews with CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar highlighted enterprise as a key revenue driver for their business.
Enterprise customers accounted for about 40% of OpenAI’s business as of January, but Frier said that number will grow to nearly 50% by the end of the year. OpenAI announced in November that more than 1 million enterprise customers around the world use its technology.
Founded in 2015 as a nonprofit AI lab, OpenAI launched its ChatGPT chatbot in 2022, and since then its valuation has ballooned to $500 billion.
“Our business today is incredibly strong,” Friar said Wednesday. “Going forward, what’s important to us is, ‘How do we add value to the consumer? How do we add value to the enterprise? How do we close this capability gap?'” You’re going to hear us talk about this a lot. ”
Amodei said that while Anthropic offers consumer products, those are not the company’s primary focus.
Roughly 80% of Anthropic’s business comes from businesses and 20% from consumers, he said, adding that startups embraced businesses in part because they are a relatively predictable and stable source of revenue.
“Anthropic has been thinking from the beginning in terms of the safety and reliability of AI systems, and one of the things we’ve realized is that it’s very synergistic to work with businesses versus consumers,” Amodei said.
As of September, Anthropic had more than 300,000 business customers, up from less than 1,000 two years ago.
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI executives and researchers, and its valuation has since risen to $350 billion.
WATCH: Watch CNBC’s full interview with Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of Anthropic.
