March 17, 2026 OpenAI is refocusing its business on coding and enterprise products after internal leadership said its broad “do everything” strategy had diluted execution. The shift comes as the company loses ground to Anthropic, which now holds an estimated 40 per cent share of the enterprise AI market while OpenAI’s share has declined to 27 per cent.
The change was outlined in an internal meeting led by applications CEO Fidji Simo, who told staff the company needs to prioritise productivity and business-focused use cases.
“We cannot miss this moment because we are distracted by side quests,” Simo said, according to remarks reported by The Wall Street Journal.
OpenAI had spent the past year expanding across multiple product areas, including video generation, hardware, web browsing and e-commerce features within ChatGPT. CEO Sam Altman previously described the approach as operating like a portfolio of startups inside one company.
The new direction signals a pullback from that strategy. Leadership is reviewing which initiatives to deprioritise, with changes expected to be communicated internally in the coming weeks.
The competitive pressure is most visible in software development tools. Anthropic’s Claude Code has grown into a major revenue driver, generating more than US$2.5 billion in annualised revenue, while OpenAI’s Codex was producing just over US$1 billion as of early 2026.
OpenAI is attempting to regain traction in that segment. Simo said Codex now has more than two million weekly active users, nearly four times its usage at the start of the year.
The company is also consolidating products that have not sustained adoption. Its Sora video-generation tool briefly reached the top of Apple’s App Store rankings after launch but saw usage decline, and OpenAI is now integrating those capabilities back into ChatGPT rather than maintaining a standalone app.
Beyond product changes, OpenAI is pursuing enterprise distribution partnerships. The company is in discussions with private equity firms including TPG, Bain Capital, Advent International and Brookfield Asset Management to form a joint venture aimed at expanding adoption of its enterprise tools. The proposed deal is valued at about US$10 billion.
