Inside 2,236 AI Buyer Discussions: How Anthropic Overtook OpenAI in Enterprise Momentum

As OpenAI and Anthropic both inch toward going public, this report breaks down the data from the largest qualitative dataset on enterprise LLM evaluation and spend trends. 

We draw on Qualitate’s 1H ‘26 Data Management & AI study, featuring 2,200+ structured discussions with senior technology buyers, benchmarked against prior studies.

Download the full report to compare OpenAI and Anthropic across every metric and the underlying expert discussions.

What did Qualitate’s 1H ’26 study find on OpenAI and Anthropic?

Three findings define the trend heading into 2H ’26.

Anthropic leads the industry on spend. It posts the strongest current-account spend growth of any vendor in the study, and its usage share in AI & MLOps category doubled study-over-study. Buyers point to token consumption from agentic coding as the driver.

OpenAI’s top-of-funnel is shrinking. Its share of active evaluations fell by roughly half between 2H ’25 and 1H ’26, a leading indicator of reduced presence in future jump-ball decisions. Its conversion rate now trails Anthropic’s.

Enterprise-readiness is a key driver. Buyers deciding against OpenAI cite consumer drift, unclear privacy terms, and security concerns. On regulatory, compliance, and security feature alignment, Anthropic scores 79% versus OpenAI’s 62%.

How do Anthropic and OpenAI compare on spend growth?

Anthropic posts the strongest current-account spend growth of any vendor in the study. OpenAI is second.

For Anthropic, the unit driver is tokens. Buyers tie growth to agentic coding, expanding agent use cases, and added Claude seats.

One buyer: “We started with some of the cheaper [models] and saw even better results when you use Opus. That’s huge ROI to spend very marginally more for the best models. The driver’s token consumption.”

Why is OpenAI’s evaluation pipeline shrinking?

OpenAI’s evaluation rate has declined across consecutive studies and sits below the industry average of roughly 26%. Fewer evaluations today means less presence in tomorrow’s jump-ball decisions.

Buyers still evaluating OpenAI cite best-in-class general-purpose capabilities, strong integrations, and customization flexibility. But the top of the funnel is thinning while Anthropic’s widens.

Why are buyers choosing Anthropic over OpenAI?

OpenAI’s conversion rate now trails Anthropic’s.

Buyers deciding against OpenAI give two consistent reasons: the company’s consumer focus that they read as weaker enterprise readiness, and security, data-privacy, and trust concerns.

One buyer: “We felt that Claude had more robust enterprise standards than OpenAI. We weren’t comfortable with OpenAI’s shift to more consumer focus.”

What’s in the full report?

The downloadable deck covers OpenAI and Anthropic across every metric, with the buyer quotes behind the numbers:

• Current-account spend growth for Anthropic and OpenAI, with the drivers buyers named.
• The OpenAI-to-Anthropic conversion flip, including the enterprise-readiness and security quotes driving buyers to decide against OpenAI.
• Evaluation rate and usage share trends in AI & MLOps, 2H ’25 versus 1H ’26.
• Feature alignment across AI/automation, integration, and regulatory/compliance/security 
• Anthropic’s head-to-head win/loss tallies, plus the reasons buyers gave for each.