By Nataly Kelly, CMO, Zappi
OpenAI’s ads pilot reportedly crossed $100 million in revenue within six weeks. It’s a reminder of the extraordinary monetization potential of these platforms.
A recent survey of LLM users found that 56% already use AI tools daily or more. Adoption is happening faster than almost any SaaS category before it. Consumers are still deciding who they trust and who they will avoid. All the while, habits are forming before our very eyes. The products that are in on the ground floor with consumers will benefit from classic SaaS stickiness and B2C brand loyalty.
The two fastest-growing players in the space, OpenAI and Anthropic, are increasingly taking two very different paths through the AI boom. One is trying to become ubiquitous. The other is trying to become indispensable.
Ubiquity vs. utility
History repeats itself. Apple was once the closed, premium, trust-and-craftsmanship brand, making the utility aspect very clear. Early Microsoft was the ubiquity play – preinstalled everywhere, monetized through volume, “good enough” for everyone.
What we are seeing play out with these two businesses maps OpenAI to early Microsoft. ChatGPT has become a default behavior with mass adoption and distribution, now monetizing this attention. Meanwhile, Anthropic is more reminiscent of Apple – quieter, deliberate, premium, and with a higher willingness-to–pay per user.
The data supports this dual path to building a new category that both companies are taking. Claude has 13% usage but near-equivalent paid conversion. That’s the Apple pattern: smaller share, higher revenue per user, brand loyalty driving price tolerance. ChatGPT’s 61% usage with only half paying is Microsoft’s pattern: dominant footprint, monetization through third parties, such as API, enterprise, and now, its latest revenue stream: ads.
Today’s product choices vs. tomorrow’s brand perception
That difference shows in how the companies brand themselves. OpenAI’s decision to sell ads is in the short term, a product roadmap choice toward the ubiquity they seek; but in the long term, it’s also a branding choice. Once you begin taking advertising dollars, your incentives naturally shift from “give the user the best answer” to “give the user an answer that also serves the needs of a paying third party.” Consumers can sense this, even if they cannot easily articulate it. That’s the reason that 57% of users would switch from a platform once ads are introduced. It’s not because they hate ads. It’s because they know they can perceive they are no longer the paying customer and have less power.
Anthropic made the point publicly. Its Super Bowl ad promised no advertising, a classic positioning move that put OpenAI on the back foot with a choice Anthropic had already made. And with reports this week that Anthropic has confidentially filed for an IPO, the company appears increasingly confident that trust, enterprise adoption, and premium subscriptions can support a very different path to scale.
Rapid growth doesn’t force every successful company toward the same business model. The battle we are seeing play out in AI may not ultimately be about model quality at all. More likely, it will be about these early choices that shape brand values for decades to come.
Personalization vs. privacy
Consumers are already signaling discomfort with how advertising could influence personalization inside AI assistants, drawing a clear line around protecting their own identity. 27% said they would disable memory features if used for advertising, while another 25% said they would opt out of ad personalization entirely.
Context matters even more here. When we asked which situations made ads unacceptable, consumers pointed to personal documents (17%), mental health conversations (16%), medical questions (14%), and financial or legal discussions (12%).
OpenAI already communicates like a platform seeking ubiquity: momentum, scale, possibility. Anthropic communicates like a utility: precision, intention, trust. Each evokes very different emotions and creates different perceptions as they build their early brand identities.
Competitors vs. Category co-creators
Tech evolutions produce categories, not winners. Microsoft and Apple both built generational businesses inside the same shift. So did Google and Amazon, Salesforce and Adobe. AI will follow the pattern. There is room for many brands within this emerging space.
But the companies that endure will not necessarily be the ones that grow fastest or return the fastest profits to investors. They will be the ones that monetize without exploiting, scale without compromising, and decide early what kind of brand they ultimately want to become.
AI companies should spend less time fighting each other in courtrooms and more time answering that core question. Because what ultimately will matter is the court of public opinion.
_
Nataly Kelly is the Chief Marketing Officer of Zappi, a consumer insights platform that helps brands win with consumers. A former Fulbright scholar in sociolinguistics, she is the author of multiple books, including her latest titled, Brand Global, Adapt Local, available now.
