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The logo of Anthropic (front) and the logo of OpenAI. / Reuters Yonhap

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the 10th (local time) that ChatGPT developer OpenAI is reviewing plans to deeply cut its service fees to secure an upper hand in the race for users against its rival, Anthropic.

According to sources familiar with the matter, OpenAI is discussing plans to significantly lower the price of "tokens," which serve as the industry standard unit for billing enterprise service usage.

This move is reportedly a preemptive response to expectations that Anthropic will lower its own prices.

Amid mounting complaints among corporate executives that AI usage fees are excessively high, OpenAI Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sam Altman stated at a recent event, "The cost issue has become a huge deal." He added, "I think there will be many ways to help people get more value out of it for less cost."

As price competition intensifies between these two companies leading the global AI industry, profitability could weaken for both sides. The two firms are already incurring billions of dollars in losses to cover the massive costs poured into computing resources required for AI systems to answer queries and execute tasks.

Recently, OpenAI has shown signs of losing ground to Anthropic, a later entrant to the market. Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers, Anthropic saw its revenue surge as its coding tool, "Claude Code," gained significant word-of-mouth traction among software engineers. Furthermore, Anthropic recently surpassed the valuation of market leader OpenAI for the first time.

To catch up with Anthropic, OpenAI is focusing on developing its coding tool, "Codex," while concentrating on securing enterprise customers.

Preparing for a stock market debut, OpenAI confidentially submitted an initial public offering (IPO) application to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the 8th. Anthropic filed its confidential IPO application just one week prior.

In a recent message sent to employees, CEO Altman stated that the company plans to go public within next year.

                                                                                                            Kim Hyun-min