Sam Altman Says GPT-4’s Software Shake-Up Arrived More Slowly Than He Expected

Sam Altman is revising a major expectation that followed GPT-4: that AI would quickly put software businesses up for grabs. The OpenAI chief now says AI labs were too ambitious about the timetable for economic disruption, pointing instead to the persistence of established companies, tools and customer behavior.

A slower break with old software habits

Altman said he expected much greater disruption soon after GPT-4 launched in 2023, with more software companies becoming vulnerable right away. Instead, he said, the economy has inertia: people keep buying from familiar companies and want to use tools in familiar ways.

That is not an argument that the technology lacks capability. It is Altman’s explanation for why technical progress has not translated into the immediate, broad software-market reshuffling he anticipated. He described the slower transition as positive in some respects because it could make a large adjustment smoother.

Fast-growing suppliers, slower economic adjustment

The latest reported commercial figures sharpen that contrast. OpenAI’s revenue rose 18% quarter over quarter to $6.7 billion in the second quarter. The Wall Street Journal, cited in the same account, said Anthropic’s sales doubled over that period.

Those figures measure demand for the providers’ products. Altman’s revised forecast concerns a different outcome: whether that demand causes customers to abandon incumbent software and routines as quickly as he expected. His comments leave open whether the present supplier growth will eventually lead to that disruption or support a longer period of AI being absorbed into existing ways of working.

The competitive clock keeps running

The slower adoption thesis arrives during an intense contest between the suppliers themselves. Nasdaq Private Market data cited in the account put Anthropic’s valuation at $1.12 trillion and OpenAI’s private-market valuation at $882.62 billion. The same account said OpenAI’s potential IPO had moved to next year, while Anthropic could pursue an offering as soon as next month or early October; neither is a completed transaction.

Altman’s reset therefore changes the timing, not the stakes. AI companies can still compete fiercely for revenue, valuation and investor attention while the larger economic transition moves at the pace of customers willing to change.