Some early investors in OpenAI are questioning the start-up’s $852 billion (£628bn) valuation, amid shifts in strategy that make it appear unfocused, according to a report from the Financial Times. The criticism reflects growing unease among backers who once championed OpenAI as the undisputed leader in artificial intelligence. Now, they fear the company is losing its edge as it pivots toward enterprise sales and coding tools, areas where rivals like Anthropic and Google have already established strong positions.
The concerns were echoed by an unnamed early backer of OpenAI, who told the publication: “You have ChatGPT, a 1 billion-user business growing 50-100 per cent a year, what are you doing talking about enterprise and code? It’s a deeply unfocused company.” This sentiment captures the heart of the investor discontent: OpenAI appears to be diluting its core strength in consumer AI to pursue higher-margin but more competitive segments. The investor further warned that OpenAI’s latest strategy shift could leave the company vulnerable to Anthropic, a startup valued at $380 billion, and to Google’s increasingly capable AI models.
Background: OpenAI’s Rise and Recent Pivots
OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a non-profit research organisation dedicated to ensuring that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity. It later transitioned to a capped-profit model in 2019 and received a landmark $1 billion investment from Microsoft. The launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 revolutionised the AI industry, amassing over 100 million users in just two months and making OpenAI a household name. By early 2025, ChatGPT had grown to over 1 billion monthly active users, with revenue reportedly doubling year-over-year.
However, the company’s trajectory has become increasingly erratic. In late 2024 and early 2025, OpenAI made a series of abrupt strategic decisions that have left investors scratching their heads. Among the most notable was the shuttering of its video generation tool, Sora, which had already secured a $1 billion investment commitment from Disney. The cancellation eliminated a potentially lucrative partnership and forced Disney to seek alternatives for its content generation needs. Similarly, OpenAI scrapped plans for an “adult” chatbot aimed at specific niche markets, citing regulatory and reputational risks.
The company also drastically pared back an investment deal with Nvidia, which had been intended to secure preferential access to high-end graphics processing units (GPUs). This was accompanied by the halting of plans to develop a $30 billion data centre in the UK and to extend a site in Abilene, Texas. These infrastructure pullbacks raised questions about OpenAI’s commitment to scaling compute capacity, a critical component of training and running large AI models.
Instead, OpenAI has shifted its focus to pushing Codex, its coding tool, to businesses. Codex, which helps developers write and debug code, directly competes with Anthropic’s Claude Code suite and Google’s Codey. While coding tools represent a large enterprise market, they are also fiercely competitive and require deep integration with other software development ecosystems. Early adopters report mixed results, and some developers have criticised Codex for being less reliable than its competitors in complex, multi-language projects.
Investor Concerns: Valuation and IPO Uncertainty
The financial implications of these strategic pivots are significant. An investor who has backed both OpenAI and Anthropic told the Financial Times that any investment into OpenAI’s most recent funding round would have to assume an IPO valuation of $1.2 trillion or more. That figure, the investor argued, has become increasingly difficult to justify given the cheaper proposition of buying into Anthropic, which is valued at $380 billion. Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI employees, has gained a reputation for safety-focused AI and has secured lucrative contracts with enterprise clients such as Slack and Zoom.
Another unnamed investor criticised OpenAI’s purchase of tech talk show TBPN, calling it “a distraction.” The acquisition, which cost an undisclosed sum, was meant to bolster OpenAI’s brand presence in the developer community. However, investors see it as a move that diverts attention and resources from core AI research and product development. “We’re not a media company. Why are we buying a talk show?” one investor remarked privately.
Jai Das, president of investment firm Sapphire Ventures, who is not an investor in either OpenAI or Anthropic, drew a stark historical parallel. He referred to OpenAI as potentially “the Netscape of AI,” referencing the browser company that dominated the late 1990s but was overtaken by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and eventually acquired by AOL for a fraction of its peak valuation. Das warned that if OpenAI fails to maintain its technological lead and strategic focus, it could suffer a similar fate – a cautionary tale that resonates deeply in the Silicon Valley investment community.
Competitive Landscape: Anthropic and Google Gain Ground
Anthropic, co-founded by Dario and Daniela Amodei (both former OpenAI employees), has emerged as a formidable rival. With a strong emphasis on AI safety and a conservative approach to product rollouts, Anthropic has won the trust of enterprises that are wary of deploying generative AI in regulated industries. The company’s Claude models are widely praised for their reliability in legal, medical, and financial applications. In the enterprise sales segment, Anthropic has secured more than 500 large-account customers, while OpenAI’s enterprise sales division, though growing, remains young and unseasoned.
Google, meanwhile, has been aggressively integrating its Gemini models across its cloud services, Workspace productivity tools, and Android operating system. The tech giant’s vast data resources and existing enterprise relationships give it a distribution advantage that OpenAI struggles to match. Google Cloud recently reported a 30% increase in AI-related revenue, partly driven by enterprise customers adopting Gemini for tasks ranging from customer support to code generation.
Despite these challenges, some analysts point out that OpenAI still holds a strong lead over Anthropic in procuring computing resources. Through its close partnership with Microsoft, OpenAI has preferential access to Azure’s GPU clusters and has secured multi-year agreements with Nvidia that, although scaled back, still provide tens of thousands of H100 and H200 chips. This infrastructure advantage could prove critical as model sizes continue to grow exponentially.
OpenAI’s chief financial officer, Sarah Friar, pushed back against the criticism. In a statement to the Financial Times, she said: “Our large recent funding round demonstrates the confidence that investors have in our vision and our ability to execute. We are building AI that will benefit all of humanity, and we are taking the long-term view necessary to achieve that mission.” Friar also emphasised that the company’s enterprise clients include Fortune 500 companies in healthcare, finance, and manufacturing, where OpenAI’s models are driving significant productivity gains.
Historical Context: OpenAI’s Corporate Structure and Governance
OpenAI’s unusual corporate structure has long been a source of debate. The company is governed by a non-profit board that imposes a cap on returns for investors in its capped-profit subsidiary. This structure was designed to align profit incentives with the public interest mission. However, critics argue that it makes OpenAI less adaptable to market dynamics and more prone to strategic zigzags. The departure of several high-profile executives, including co-founders Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever, has heightened concerns about internal instability.
In 2023, Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, was briefly ousted by the board, only to be reinstated days later following intense pressure from investors and employees. The episode revealed deep fractures within the organisation over the pace of commercialisation and the prioritisation of safety. Since then, the board has been restructured to include more industry veterans, but the underlying tension between profit-seeking and safety-driven research persists.
These governance issues have contributed to the perception that OpenAI lacks a coherent long-term strategy. One investor described the company’s decision-making as “reactive,” with shifts driven more by interim metrics or competitor moves than by a clear product roadmap. This contrasts sharply with Anthropic, which has adhered to a tight focus on safety and enterprise reliability, and with Google, which leverages its massive portfolio to cross-sell AI features.
Market Reactions and Future Outlook
The market’s reaction to OpenAI’s recent moves has been mixed. While the company’s $85 billion valuation in early 2025 was hailed as a milestone, subsequent reports of strategic shifts and investor discontent have caused some secondary market valuations to dip. Private share trading platforms have seen OpenAI’s implied valuation fluctuate between $800 billion and $900 billion, reflecting uncertainty about the company’s near-term trajectory.
Meanwhile, Anthropic is reportedly preparing for its own major funding round, aiming to raise up to $10 billion at a valuation of $400 billion. This would give Anthropic the financial firepower to challenge OpenAI in compute procurement and enterprise sales. Google’s AI division, DeepMind, continues to produce groundbreaking research, including advances in protein folding and mathematical reasoning, that could spill over into commercial products.
“The AI arms race is heating up, and no company is guaranteed to stay on top,” said Rana Gupta, a technology analyst at a major investment bank. “OpenAI’s dominance in consumer AI is real, but its latest strategic pivots suggest a lack of conviction. If they keep chopping and changing, they risk alienating both users and investors.”
Other industry observers point out that OpenAI still has significant advantages: the ChatGPT brand is the most recognised AI product globally, and the company’s research team remains one of the deepest in the field. Recent models like GPT-5 have shown impressive gains in reasoning and multimodal capabilities. The challenge for OpenAI will be to channel these strengths into a focused strategy that satisfies both investors and customers.
OpenAI’s decision to prioritise Codex and enterprise sales is not without logic. The enterprise AI market is projected to reach $150 billion by 2026, and companies that capture early contracts often establish sticky relationships. However, the same was once said of the consumer chatbot market, where OpenAI has faced stiff competition from China’s Baidu and DeepSeek, which offer comparable performance at lower cost. By dividing its attention between consumer and enterprise, OpenAI risks being mediocre in both.
In response to the criticism, OpenAI has announced plans to hold an investor day in the coming weeks to clarify its strategic priorities. The company is also reportedly exploring a simplified corporate structure that would remove the profit cap, potentially allowing for a traditional IPO. Such a move would be controversial among safety advocates but might appease investors seeking liquidity and higher returns.
As the AI industry matures, the pressure on OpenAI to demonstrate consistent execution will only intensify. The coming months will be crucial: if OpenAI can articulate a clear vision and execute on it without further distractions, it may yet silence its critics. If not, the “unfocused” label could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The tech world will be watching closely.
Source: Silicon UK News