Coding with LLMs (Claude Code, OpenAI Codex) is often presented as the ‘killer app’ for Generative AI. But looking at data, it seems the one piece of the puzzle missing is actual cost. …
Honestly Google is likely to beat openAI and Anthropic as things are.
OpenAI and Anthropic have to buy/rent their hardware from Nvidia, while Google is making their own TPU hardware. Google’s hardware costs on AI is way lower, every dollar they spend on it goes a lot farther.
And unlike the other two, they’re already a profitable company. They’re making record profits right now. They don’t have a desperate need to figure out how to make back billions on their AI models, they can just keep offering Gemini at a comparatively cheap price and wait for anthropic and open AI to bankrupt themselves.
Plus they have a hook with the common folk, the phone steers you toward Gemini (Android phones, obviously, and Apple currently partners with Google for Gemini for iPhone…).
For Claude and OpenAI, you have to explicitly want to go out of your way to use them, or use them indirectly through another service that has a hook.
Claude seems to have some software developers explicitly preferring them, though a alot of the corporate money is on Microsoft and Microsoft leveraged Visual Studio and Github to become the business-friendly frontend, and sure, you can use Anthropic models too… Though Microsoft ultimately has control of what is reasonably available and how much each one costs. Anthropic has a shot but I could see Microsoft pivot to really mess with Anthropic. The one gap in Microsoft strategy is the “native AI” workflow where Claude Code has won hearts and minds, but it uses massively more tokens for frankly marginal or sometimes negative value compared to a more curated use in-editor.
OpenAI I see as the most exposed. Lot’s of data showing they are suffering from people being over the fad of going out of their way to use ChatGPT, especially since their phones have started embracing ‘default’ Chatbot. Software developers that are inclined to use LLM are also inclined to be pretty dismissive of anything other than either Anthropic or open weight models, depending on their inclination. Also Altman seemed the most agressive in committing to spending money they didn’t have, though all of them exhibit this to some extent.
I predict Microsoft ultimately pivots to in-house models and convinces the businesses to go that way. Apple may continue with Gemini or roll their own eventually. Anthropic currently has the stronger position between OpenAI and them, but I think you are right that both have risk of just being left behind.
They’re all evil, so we just have to exploit the ones that offer us some value. If Google is cheaper, and has the ability to damage the others, then Google it is.
Google is shaping up to fare better than the others, but I dont think that means success. They, too, are spending more than its making, just at a less drunken rate than some competitors.
Google is only worse by virtue of their reach. OpenAI and Anthropic don’t have the reach yet, but they absolutely will get there given the chance.
Before Google had the reach it has now, it was widely regarded as a comparitive ‘good guy’ and people believed in the “don’t be evil”. Lo and behold once they got going, “don’t be evil” went away.
Honestly Google is likely to beat openAI and Anthropic as things are.
OpenAI and Anthropic have to buy/rent their hardware from Nvidia, while Google is making their own TPU hardware. Google’s hardware costs on AI is way lower, every dollar they spend on it goes a lot farther.
And unlike the other two, they’re already a profitable company. They’re making record profits right now. They don’t have a desperate need to figure out how to make back billions on their AI models, they can just keep offering Gemini at a comparatively cheap price and wait for anthropic and open AI to bankrupt themselves.
I guess google’s announcement of renting xai compute could have been simply for show to boost SpaceX ipo.
Plus they have a hook with the common folk, the phone steers you toward Gemini (Android phones, obviously, and Apple currently partners with Google for Gemini for iPhone…).
For Claude and OpenAI, you have to explicitly want to go out of your way to use them, or use them indirectly through another service that has a hook.
Claude seems to have some software developers explicitly preferring them, though a alot of the corporate money is on Microsoft and Microsoft leveraged Visual Studio and Github to become the business-friendly frontend, and sure, you can use Anthropic models too… Though Microsoft ultimately has control of what is reasonably available and how much each one costs. Anthropic has a shot but I could see Microsoft pivot to really mess with Anthropic. The one gap in Microsoft strategy is the “native AI” workflow where Claude Code has won hearts and minds, but it uses massively more tokens for frankly marginal or sometimes negative value compared to a more curated use in-editor.
OpenAI I see as the most exposed. Lot’s of data showing they are suffering from people being over the fad of going out of their way to use ChatGPT, especially since their phones have started embracing ‘default’ Chatbot. Software developers that are inclined to use LLM are also inclined to be pretty dismissive of anything other than either Anthropic or open weight models, depending on their inclination. Also Altman seemed the most agressive in committing to spending money they didn’t have, though all of them exhibit this to some extent.
I predict Microsoft ultimately pivots to in-house models and convinces the businesses to go that way. Apple may continue with Gemini or roll their own eventually. Anthropic currently has the stronger position between OpenAI and them, but I think you are right that both have risk of just being left behind.
I really really really don’t want evil corporation Google to dominate even more.
I prefer plailny greedy corporations over evil ones
They’re all evil, so we just have to exploit the ones that offer us some value. If Google is cheaper, and has the ability to damage the others, then Google it is.
Google is shaping up to fare better than the others, but I dont think that means success. They, too, are spending more than its making, just at a less drunken rate than some competitors.
OpenAI and Anthropic aren’t less evil than Google.
They aren’t great, though I do think Google is worse. And far too powerful
Google is only worse by virtue of their reach. OpenAI and Anthropic don’t have the reach yet, but they absolutely will get there given the chance.
Before Google had the reach it has now, it was widely regarded as a comparitive ‘good guy’ and people believed in the “don’t be evil”. Lo and behold once they got going, “don’t be evil” went away.