HumanX Conference Buzz Centers on Claude

At the HumanX AI conference in San Francisco this week, thousands of tech professionals gathered at the Moscone Center, where the conversation centered on how agentic AI is transforming the business landscape. These agents, which automate business and coding tasks, are now being deployed across industries—primarily through enterprise and consumer chatbots.

Unsurprisingly, I was curious which chatbot had the most traction, and one name kept coming up: Claude.

Anthropic received numerous mentions in panels throughout the week, and it also came up in conversations with vendors I spoke to on the convention floor. The chatbot that barely got a mention? ChatGPT. One vendor specifically told me his team relied heavily on Claude, adding that he felt ChatGPT and OpenAI had declined—or, as the internet puts it, “fell off.”

Recently, that sentiment seems far from unique. Despite a recent $122 billion funding round and an upcoming IPO, OpenAI appears to have lost its footing—or at least seems uncertain about its next move—and it's unclear how to change that perception.

A contributing factor might be the perception that the company lacks direction. Last month, OpenAI dropped several long-simmering side projects—including its AI video generator Sora and a troubled plan to launch a “sexy” version of ChatGPT—and instead doubled down on business and coding services. Meanwhile, a recent New Yorker piece questioning CEO Sam Altman's trustworthiness, along with other developments, has generated negative buzz around the company. Its work with the Trump administration hasn’t won it any friends either, nor has the decision to inject advertising into ChatGPT.

In one HumanX session, Sierra co-founder and CEO Bret Taylor—who also chairs OpenAI’s board—defended Altman when Alex Heath asked about the New Yorker profile. “I think Sam is one of the most visible leaders and executives in the world,” said Taylor. “If you want to seek out detractors for him, you’ll find them, and they’ll be very vocal about it,” he added. “I think Sam’s remarkable. I think he’s a remarkable leader of AI, and I really trust his character as someone who’s worked with him.”

The controversies and shifting priorities make OpenAI appear reactive rather than strategic—responding to events instead of shaping them. However, in terms of prominence and revenue, OpenAI and Anthropic are neck and neck—or close to it. Some data suggests Anthropic is gaining ground with business users. The Wall Street Journal recently analyzed their finances, calling the two companies “the fastest-growing businesses in the history of tech.” So maybe “falling off” for OpenAI simply means it’s no longer the undisputed leader. It now has competition—which is normal in most industries.

What’s clear is that OpenAI is determined to stay dominant. This week, the company announced a new $100 subscription tier for ChatGPT that offers substantially more access to Codex, its coding tool. The move appears aimed at encouraging broader usage of the tool while ideally drawing users away from Claude Code.

In a HumanX panel with Bloomberg’s Rachel Metz, OpenAI’s CTO of B2B applications, Srinivas Narayanan, noted how quickly the technological landscape has been changing.

“We are in an incredible moment in technology—every month, sometimes every day, we anticipate something new,” Narayanan said. Pointing to agentic coding as an example, he added, “We knew AI would impact software engineering, and people have used assistive coding over the past year, but even in just the last few months, the entire field has changed.”

Agentic achievements currently dominate tech community attention, partly because other AI applications—like creative and scientific uses—haven’t fully materialized yet. Still, the volume of work companies are offloading to these automated helpers is surprising—and, as Narayanan noted, it’s all happened in a relatively short time. In such an unpredictable environment, the future remains wide open.