OpenAI and Anthropic: The Battle of Free Offers

OpenAI and Anthropic Compete in the Free Offer Arena

OpenAI and Anthropic are engaged in an intense competition to attract users through free offers for their coding tools, Codex and Claude Code. On Wednesday, both companies made significant announcements less than an hour apart on X, illustrating their desire to appeal to businesses.

OpenAI Bets on Codex

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed on X that his company would offer two months of free usage of Codex to businesses that sign up within 30 days. Altman described Codex as the "best AI coding product" and aims to make it easier for companies to try it out.

Anthropic Responds with Claude Code

Shortly after OpenAI's announcement, the Claude developer account announced a 50% increase in the weekly limits for Claude Code, valid until July 13. This offer is available to all Pro, Max, Team users, and seat-based businesses. Anthropic expressed its excitement by stating, "We can't wait to see what everyone will create!"

Context and Criticism

Anthropic's announcement comes less than a month after the launch of Opus 4.7, a model intended to enhance Claude's coding and reasoning capabilities. However, initial criticisms have emerged, with users claiming that the model makes simple mistakes and is combative. Additionally, Opus 4.7 consumes tokens more quickly than previous models, which may explain the free usage offer.

Valuation and Stakes

Money is flowing into AI companies, which need to attract users, especially businesses. With valuations reaching $800 billion for Anthropic and $840 billion for OpenAI, these companies are under pressure to retain their customers, particularly those with high-spending enterprise accounts.