With Anthropic's initial public offering (IPO) now expected to take place in the week of Nov. 16, retail investors will at last be able to directly own shares of the pure-play artificial intelligence (AI) company known for its family of Claude large language models.
Its main competitor in the space is ChatGPT developer OpenAI, which has been mulling an IPO of its own, but which recently said it intended to put that move off until 2027. Wall Street has mostly framed the large language model battle in winner-take-all terms, anticipating that the company that has the dominant chatbot and connected services will take the lion's share of the market. Instead of picking one stock over the other, however, there's an alternative option to consider.
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More companies in the United States are integrating AI into their everyday operations. As a report from The Motley Fool in October noted:
The Census Bureau reported that 24.6% of U.S. businesses used AI in October 2026, up from 3.7% in September 2023, when it started tracking AI adoption by industry.
As that adoption rate continues to rise, companies will have to consider whether Anthropic or OpenAI better suits their needs. From an investing standpoint, if someone sees one company with a greater competitive advantage in winning more consumer, corporate, or government clients, they may pick the perceived winner when the companies go public. Some investors may decide to sit out the Anthropic IPO, waiting to invest in OpenAI if it goes public. Others may follow the opposite strategy.
That said, projections and history suggest there may be enough of a sales pie for both companies to carve out large slices for themselves, meaning investors won't need this race to have an absolute winner to make money.
Estimates from Statista say the global AI market this year will be worth just over $707 billion, and the research firm expects it to grow to $1.9 trillion by 2032. In a market that massive, neither Anthropic nor OpenAI needs to win every single sales opportunity to generate significant revenue, turn it into profits, and reward shareholders.
Similar dynamics have played out throughout history in a variety of industries. Consider the soda wars, where Coca-Cola (KO +1.36%) and PepsiCo (PEP +2.65%) have been competing for over 100 years. In 2026, the global soda market is valued at $727 billion, and both companies haul in tens of billions of dollars in beverage sales each year.
NYSE · As of 4:00 PM ET 10/30/26
In 2025, Coca-Cola generated $47.9 billion of full-year revenue, with consolidated net income of $13.1 billion, while Pepsi generated $93.9 billion in revenue and $8.2 billion in net income. Granted, Pepsi generates more of its sales today from snacks than from drinks, but the point is that when there is a large enough market, multiple companies can do quite well without having to win the sector outright.
For one more example, consider the roles of Visa (V +0.74%) and Mastercard (MA +0.36%) in the financial space. There has been plenty of room for more than one payment processor, with the Boston Consulting Group projecting that global payments market revenue will reach $2 trillion in 2025 and $2.6 trillion by 2030. In 2025, Mastercard hauled in $32.8 billion in revenue and $15 billion in net income, while Visa generated $40 billion in revenue and $20.1 billion in GAAP net income. Meanwhile, a host of smaller players in payments are operating profitably as well.
Investing in Anthropic or OpenAI (once it, too, goes public) does require understanding all the risks and weighing them against the potential rewards. And yes, both companies will be competitors, trying to woo similar clients.
The bigger framework to consider isn't which company will win the AI wars; it is how much bigger the AI story can get. If the AI market gets as big as large tech players believe it will, as they are showing through their capital expenditures, there can be enough room for both Anthropic and OpenAI, as well as other players, to reward long-term shareholders.
While owning stakes in both companies could create a bit of concentration risk if you made them large slices of your portfolio, it could pay to consider buying both, as successful investing often involves being directionally right about trends rather than picking one company over another.
Jack Delaney has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Mastercard and Visa. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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Instead of attempting to guess whether Anthropic, OpenAI, or one of the other AI competitors will dominate, investors should consider a different possibility.
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