# Anthropic Leads Enterprise AI Adoption as Privacy and Automation Reshape Markets

**Podcast:** TechCrunch Daily Crunch
**Published:** 2026-05-14

## Transcript

This is TechCrunch.
According to new data, Anthropic now has more business customers than OpenAI.
I'm Imran Shaikh, and your Daily Crunch for Thursday featuring three big tech headlines starts right now.
On Wednesday, Meta said it's adding the ability to start incognito conversations with its Meta AI chatbot within WhatsApp.
Now, these conversations, the company said, will be processed in a secure environment and can't be seen by anyone.
Users can start an incognito session by tapping on a new icon and one-on-one chats with Meta AI.
The company said the feature will also be available on the standalone Meta AI app as well.
Incognito chats will roll out to WhatsApp and the Meta AI app over the next few months.
Meta said these incognito conversations are not saved and messages will disappear by default once you close the chat.
The session will also end if you close the app or lock your phone and Meta AI will lose the context of of that particular conversation, the company said.
The company's been laying down the groundwork for secure AI chats on WhatsApp for a while now.
You see, last year, it detailed its private processing infrastructure that would let it build AI features without breaking end-to-end encryption.
Since then, WhatsApp has added features like AI-powered summaries of messages that use this architecture.
The company is already working on its next feature that taps its private processing infrastructure.
Called SideChat, it will let users invoke Meta AI within chats to ask questions and get answers privately without notifying or showing it to other people in the chat.
Meta's move towards private AI chats comes at a key time.
You see, last month, Reuters cited lawyers who opined that users' conversations with an AI chatbot could be used against them in litigation.
Well, gang, whether you like it or not, Amazon continues to put AI at the center of the shopping journey.
The company announced Wednesday, Alexa for Shopping, its new personalized AI shopping assistant powered by Alexa Plus.
Notably, the experience will replace Rufus, its generative AI shopping assistant that launched in 2024.
Now, according to the company, Alexa for Shopping is designed to offer a voice-and-touch-enabled shopping experience across mobile, desktop, and Echo Show smart displays.
While Rufus focused on helping customers discover and compare products, Alexa for Shopping is meant to provide more personalized recommendations and automate the shopping experience across Amazon and other online retailers.
Now available to U.S.
customers, Alexa for Shopping can answer anything from what's a good skincare routine for men to when did I last order AA batteries?
Users can type their questions into the main search bar or the dedicated Alexa for Shopping chat window, and Alexa will provide tailored answers, recommendations, and even create custom shopping guides.
The company says the assistant understands customers' habits, preferences, and purchase history to bring that connected, personalized assistance to how you shop and to make the assistant more personal and more helpful over time.
Beyond answering questions, Alexa for Shopping can compare products, track prices, and even schedule recurring orders for essentials like pet food or paper towels.
If you want to automatically add something to your cart when it goes on sale, you can just tell Alexa, add this sunscreen to my cart if the price drops to $10.
The launch of Alexa for shopping comes on the heels of Amazon introducing its 30-minute delivery service, Amazon Now, in dozens of U.S.
cities, and a new AI-powered feature that generates real-time conversational audio responses to customer product questions.
For the first time, Anthropic has more verified business customers than OpenAI, according to this month's AI index from the fintech firm Ramp.
The survey, compiled from Ramp's clients' expense data, shows 34.4% of participating businesses are paying for Anthropic services, more than any other AI lab, while only 32.3% pay for OpenAI.
It's the first time Anthropic has held the top position.
Because the index only represents companies that use RAMP, it's not a perfect proxy for the marketplace at large.
Still, the sample includes more than 50,000 companies, making it both broad and diverse enough to carry weight.
More importantly, the general trend can be seen across the industry.
On Open Router's leaderboard, which samples a different portion of users, opening I last ranked above Anthropic in December 2025.
According to RAMP's figures, the past 12 months have been particularly transformative for Anthropic.
In May 2025, a mere 9% of businesses were paying for Anthropic products, a figure that climbed 26% in the following 12 months.
Over the same period, OpenAI's share declined by 1%, and the overall share of businesses using some kind of AI product increased by 9%.
Ara Karazian, lead economist at Ramp, is skeptical about whether this advantage will last for reasons he explained in a blog post, but said the success of the past year was proof that Anthropic had chosen a good strategy.
What Anthropic did worked really well, Karazian told TechCrunch, continuing, which was start with a very technical customer base, focus on their needs, really succeed in execution, and then start broadening out through tools like Cowork.
And folks, that's your Daily Crunch.
Today's stories were reported by Lauren Forrestal, Russell Brandom, Ivan Mehta and more awesome TechCrunch journalists.
We'll see you here tomorrow, same Tech Time, same Crunch channel.
And until then, find us at techcrunch.com.
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