OpenAI Drew More Consumer Spending Than Anthropic in 47 States, YipitData Found

Consumers spent more on OpenAI than Anthropic in 47 states during June through August, according to newly published YipitData findings covered by Business Insider. Anthropic led in three states and Washington, DC. The result gives OpenAI a broad geographic advantage among observed payments, but leaves out the people using either company’s chatbots for free.

A map built from payments

YipitData collected the comparison’s spending data from consumer credit and debit cards between June and August. Andreessen Horowitz first published it in the seventh edition of its Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps report on October 5. This edition adds observed U.S. consumer spending to a report that also ranks products by web and mobile traffic.

The spending data comes from panels: groups whose transactions are observed, rather than a census of every consumer. Andreessen Horowitz explicitly cautions that its U.S.-only spending figures should not be read as total company revenue. The map therefore describes payments in the dataset, not the full financial contest between the two companies.

There is another boundary: this geographic comparison covers OpenAI and Anthropic, not other consumer AI providers. Free ChatGPT and Claude users do not register as spending. A preference expressed through unpaid use is invisible here, making the map a narrower measure than overall consumer preference.

The exceptions and the strongest leads

Anthropic’s three winning states were California, Massachusetts and Montana; Washington, DC also favored Anthropic. California is the largest state by population, a useful reminder that counting state victories gives each state one place in the tally despite large differences in population.

OpenAI’s advantage was particularly pronounced in eight states, where it captured at least 70% of spending in the two-company comparison. Delaware had the highest reported share among those eight. The figures below describe the split between OpenAI and Anthropic, not OpenAI’s share of all consumer AI spending.

• Delaware: 82%; Mississippi: 77%; Alaska: 74%.
• West Virginia: 72%; Kentucky, Louisiana and North Dakota: 71% each.
• New Mexico: 70%.

A growing, still narrow paying audience

The same report provides context for how many consumers pay. Its subscription measure uses YipitData’s U.S. e-receipt panel and counts eligible consumers with an active paid personal subscription to at least one of ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude. It includes Gemini, unlike the two-company geographic spending comparison.

That share more than doubled over the year, but remained below one in twenty eligible consumers. This is a measure of paid personal subscriptions to those three services, not of everyone using AI. The geographic findings show where observed dollars favored each company; the subscription figures describe the size of a paying audience.