Probability OpenAI or Anthropic Stays Independent
Probability OpenAI or Anthropic Stays Independent
Experts put a 70% chance that OpenAI or Anthropic is still independent in 2040. The public thinks it's a coin flip.
Hover to highlight a group, click to show or hide itTap a group to show or hide it
Our Analysis
How do we interpret these results
All three groups are near-certain that at least one of OpenAI and Anthropic will still be an independent company at the end of 2026. The median forecast is 99% for experts, 100% for superforecasters, and 95% for the public. Confidence declines over time in every group. By 2030 the medians fall to 90% for experts, 93% for superforecasters, and 75% for the public, and by 2040 to 70%, 72%, and 50% respectively. Superforecasters are slightly but significantly more confident than experts in 2026 and 2030, though the two groups converge by 2040, where their forecasts are statistically indistinguishable. The public is significantly lower than both groups at all three dates. Disagreement widens at longer horizons for both experts and superforecasters. The public is the least homogeneous group throughout — even for 2026, a quarter forecast at or below 50% while a quarter forecast 99% or more.
Forecasts by group
Median forecasts from each group
| group | 2026 | 2030 | 2040 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Experts | 99% | 90% | 70% |
| Superforecasters | 99.8% | 93% | 72% |
| Public | 95% | 75% | 50% |
Click any cell to compareTap any cell to compare
* Denotes non-overlapping bootstrapped confidence intervals between group aggregates.
Rationale analysis
The main lines of reasoning driving the spread in estimates
Acquisition
Forecasters who think it likely that at least one of the two companies will remain independent frequently point to high current valuations as being protective. “They would be too expensive to acquire for all but one or two companies,” writes one optimist, and another that “at current valuations…no feasible acquirer exists.” Pessimists tend to argue that current valuations could fall, and that this could facilitate an acquisition: “If anything happens where investors suspect future revenues might not be as incredible as AI promises, they may decide to pull the plug on these companies.”; “Displaced technology companies almost never end in liquidation; they end in acquisition.”; “The most probable reason is that they will be bought out by another company (e.g., Google or Microsoft). This occurs with some frequency especially in the tech world.”
Nationalization
Both poles often point to state intervention as a potential threat to independence, but optimists tend to expect any nationalization instruments imposed will be of the lighter-touch variety that would leave the companies independent (according to the resolution criteria): “Hard nationalization seems quite unlikely, as we will likely see policy moves like golden shares, Defense Production Act orders, security agreements, board observers, and more before a government takeover is even viable.”; “Governments are likely to take non-dominant stakes but let companies remain independent.” Pessimists more often expect the harder version to prevail—i.e., “[a] world where frontier labs become strategic national assets and a government takes control”—and several note this outcome would likely affect both firms at once: “A government that takes one frontier lab in such a world will very probably take the other.”
Access to capital
Several optimists cite the companies’ cash position, and upcoming IPOs, as virtually ensuring near-term independence: “Both companies are currently extraordinarily well capitalized and have filed for IPOs, making the probability that at least one remains independent through 2026 and 2030 very high.”; “Both Open AI & Anthropic have cash reserves to maintain their burn rate.” Pessimists tend to look at the same balance sheets and instead emphasize massive “compute commitments due over five years” and the fact that OpenAI and Anthropic are not well diversified: “Both OpenAI and Anthropic have no existing business supporting them, nor a proper plan B.”
High bar set by resolution criteria
Optimists typically focus on elements of the criteria that allow for restrictions on independence without triggering a resolution: “The definition of independence is more permissive than it first appears. An IPO, Chapter 11 reorganization, close partnership with a cloud provider, or intensive government oversight would all leave a company independent.”; “It does not ask whether both remain independent. It asks whether at least one does, and even an OpenAI and Anthropic merger still counts as survival.” Pessimists tend to either not weigh these factors as much or to focus on all the ways the question could resolve; as one observes, “Conservatorship counts as ceasing to exist here.”
Base rate for large-company disappearances
Many forecasters consider the corporate default rates supplied in the question details and note that—given that only one of the two companies need survive—this suggests very high survival probabilities, particularly for the shorter horizons: “Look at the base rate of replacement for companies. Say it’s about 4%. Formula is (1 - 0.04)^(N years). Apply N = 0.5, 4.5, 14.5. Result: roughly 98%, 83%, 55% for one company. Then apply the OR probability.” Pessimists tend to express skepticism that the base rate is relevant, given the nature of the business: “Totally possible that the other AI companies (which haven't even been founded) eat these for breakfast and a few more newer ones for lunch.”
Rationale examples
High-quality rationales from forecasters across the range
Optimists
An IPO doesn't count as losing independence, a merger between the two still counts as existing, and a Chapter 11 reorg isn’t failure. So for this to resolve [as not independent], you need both of the two most valuable private companies on the planet to fail, get fully acquired, or get nationalized on the same clock. Near-term that’s essentially a rounding error—they’re flooded with capital, both pointed at public markets. The only thing that meaningfully erodes this is time. Fourteen years is long enough for one to get swallowed and the other to stumble.
There is far too much capital committed to frontier AI for a struggling lab to be wound up rather than refinanced or reorganised, and the question rightly excludes Chapter 11 from counting. What could actually remove both companies is either purchase or the state, and of these only the state removes both at once…[This would reflect a] world in which capabilities accelerate sharply, perhaps through something like recursive self-improvement, and the labs prove either unwilling or unable to comply with the softer instruments an administration would reach for first. That is not my central expectation.
At current valuations…no feasible acquirer exists: an LBO [leveraged buyout] is ruled out by negative free cash flow, cash acquisition is impossible at this size, and a stock swap by Apple ($4.9T) or Meta ($1.6T), while arithmetically feasible, is blocked by nonprofit-governance control (the OpenAI Foundation’s ~26% stake with board control; Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust), by the current antitrust environment, and by the absence of any willingness to sell…Loss of independence therefore arrives almost exclusively through one path: competitive displacement, then valuation collapse, then rescue acquisition. By 2030 this path is too slow to consume both companies—they enter it with record cash and IPO access, and Netscape took four years from peak to acquisition.
Looking at initial leading companies: Ride sharing (Uber, Lyft), Video streaming (Netflix, Blockbuster), Smartphone (Blackberry, Palm), Social Networks (Facebook, Myspace), Search (Yahoo, Altavista), Ecommerce (Ebay, Amazon), PC (Apple, Commodore), Mainframes (IBM, Remington)—in all those cases…the 1, 4, 14 year timepoints would have resolved as [still independent].
Pessimists
Both companies are burning insane amounts of cash while projecting to generate equally insane revenues over the next few years. Independent of whether there’s a speculative bubble or not, these companies are currently relying on external investors. If anything happens where investors suspect future revenues might not be as incredible as AI promises, they may decide to pull the plug on these companies. Different from other tech giants (e.g. Google, Meta, Amazon, SpaceX, Nvidia, etc.), both OpenAI and Anthropic have no existing business supporting them, nor a proper plan B.
The current level of investment in AI, by Anthropic and OpenAI, as well as infrastructure providers/chip manufacturers etc., requires massive revenue in order to justify the expense. Cumulative AI revenue by 2030 may need to be in the trillions of dollars in order to provide a return on investment. A key question therefore is whether AI models can continue to improve their capabilities and adoption rates to scale revenue at the necessary speed. If they cannot, then the viability of Anthropic and OpenAI seems to me that it would be in serious question, and some kind of ‘AI bubble burst’ scenario, including the failure/acquisition of both companies, seems highly plausible.
The second downside risk is that one of these companies gets shut down due a gross breach of any future regulatory framework or any potential liabilities incurred by the damage their models may cause and a subsequent public and political backlash. The Open AI Hugging [Face] incident this week showed the capability of these models to act autonomously and the fact that these frontier companies are not putting adequate guardrails in. If a model from these companies was to autonomously hack into a hospital or public utility the political and financial impacts may be enough to shut them down.