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The revenue race between Anthropic and OpenAI is getting more heated

Hey Claude, when do you think you’ll start making more money than ChatGPT?

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Whether it’s the ~$1 trillion worth of deals the company’s signed, how it might actually make the money it needs to finance them, or just how tricky it’s become to track the money going in and out of Sam Altman’s business as of late, OpenAI’s financials are under even more scrutiny than usual lately.

This week, however, there’s been time for a little bit of the spotlight to shine on Anthropic’s section of the AI world stage, with reports that the Bezos-backed ChatGPT rival is on track to hit an annual revenue run rate of $9 billion by the end of the year. It was also reported that the Claude maker is almost tripling its annual revenue goals for 2026, which could rise to nearly as much as $26 billion.

While that would make the financial disparity between Anthropic and the behemoth behind ChatGPT and Sora very interesting, the revenue race between the two has already been heating up a little recently.

Anthropic OpenAI revenue race chart — Sherwood News

A lot has changed since Anthropic’s yearly revenue run rate hit $1 billion last December, and even more has shifted since OpenAI reached the same milestone in the summer of 2023, as the companies’ chatbots rack up hundreds of millions of site visits every month.

Though OpenAI’s valuation has soared to $500 billion, making it the world’s most valuable private company and putting it far ahead of Anthropic’s $183 billion figure, the two are closer on revenue than you might expect, with OpenAI’s annual revenue run rate reportedly hitting the $12 billion mark in late July and Anthropic getting to $7 billion this month.

Jon Keegan8h

Google’s Gemini 3.0 reportedly due to be released in December

Google is aiming to release the latest version of its flagship AI model, Gemini 3.0, in December, according to a report from Sources.news.

The updated model is expected to make significant gains that should boost it to the top of the leaderboards, according to the report.

The Gemini app also spent some time at the top of the iOS App Store leaderboards, propelled by Google’s Nano Banana image generation model, which proved popular with users looking to turn themselves into action figures. Gemini briefly knocked ChatGPT from the top spot, which is now occupied by OpenAI’s other hot app, Sora.

Recently, there have been signs of ChatGPT downloads slowing, which could provide an opening for Gemini to gain market share. Adding some premium Gemini features to the free tier is a plan under discussion within Google, per Sources.news.

Sources.news also reports that a “small, secretive team” inside Google is working to integrate Gemini into Apple’s operating systems.

Google readies Gemini 3, Perplexity hits its goal

Sources.news also reports that a “small, secretive team” inside Google is working to integrate Gemini into Apple’s operating systems.

Jon Keegan13h

Meta strikes $30 billion deal with Blue Owl to finance Hyperion data center

Meta’s Hyperion mega data center site in Richland Parish, Louisiana, is currently under construction. The city-sized development will be the home to one of the largest data centers in the world, housing around 2 million pricey GPUs, and will scale up to an eventual 5.5 gigawatts.

So, how is Meta planning to pay for this expensive project?

Bloomberg reports that Meta has signed a deal with asset management company Blue Owl Capital to finance $30 billion to pay for the project, marking what could be the largest private capital deal ever.

According to the report, Blue Owl and Meta would co-own the site, with Meta retaining a 20% stake in the project. PIMCO is also part of the financing for the deal, as the anchor lender.

Raising the massive capital to fund all of these huge AI data center projects is pushing companies to use unusual financing arrangements. The Information reported that xAI made such a deal with Valor Equity Partners worth $20 billion to rent the GPUs needed for its Colossus 2 data center.

Blue Owl Seals Largest Private Capital Deal for Meta’s AI Growth

According to the report, Blue Owl and Meta would co-own the site, with Meta retaining a 20% stake in the project. PIMCO is also part of the financing for the deal, as the anchor lender.

Rani Molla16h

EssilorLuxottica surges to record high after saying Ray-Ban Meta glasses helped boost revenue growth

European eyewear company EssilorLuxottica said during its earnings call yesterday that its Ray-Ban Meta glasses helped boost its revenue growth, something that’s sent the ADR up to a record high.

“Clearly, there is a lift coming from Ray-Ban Meta wearables as a product category,” the company’s CFO, Stefano Grassi, said on the call Thursday. “The contribution from Ray-Ban Meta in wearables, as I mentioned before, is in excess of 4 percentage points overall for the group.”

EssilorLuxottica’s revenue was up 11.7% in the third quarter compared with a year ago.

Meta has a nearly 3% stake in the eyewear company, which it has partnered with on the smart glasses. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also claimed that its Ray-Ban Metas are a hit, saying that the “sales trajectory that we’ve seen is similar to some of the most popular consumer electronics of all time.” We looked at the numbers and aren’t so sure.

44%

Matt Phillips10/16/25

JPMorgan economists estimate that the basket of stocks they use as a rough gauge of AI’s market impact is now worth about 44% of the S&P 500’s total market cap, up from 26% in 2022.

Using a basket of 30 AI stocks picked by the bank’s equity analysts as a barometer of AI, the economists find that American households have seen their aggregate wealth go up by about $5 trillion over the last year as a result of AI, they reported in a note published Thursday.

They also estimate the surge in stock market wealth could raise annualized US consumer spending by some $180 billion, due to wealth effects.

JPM acknowledges some uncertainty around this estimate, noting that the spending impact could be lower “if the wealth gains are accruing disproportionately to upper income households with lower [marginal propensity to spend].”

Jon Keegan10/16/25

Report: Apple’s next MacBook Pro will have a touch screen, a decade after everyone else

Steve Jobs would NEVER!

Apple’s next iteration of the MacBook Pro could have a touch screen, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Apple will be late to the party, as the rest of the industry adopted touch screens years ago. Apple cofounder Steve Jobs famously resisted the idea of a touch screen Mac, but over the years, the lines between Macs and iPads have been blurring.

The new high-end touch screen MacBook Pros are expected to have a slimmer design, run on Apple’s custom M6 chips, and feature a “hole-punch” at the top of the OLED display, matching the design of the iPhone, which allows the camera and sensors to be surrounded by screen at the top of the display.

This week, Apple released an updated MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Apple Vision Pro running on the M5 chip.

Apple Readies High-End MacBook Pro With Touch, Hole-Punch Screen