> AI is and always has been a winner-take-all strategy

People claim that AGI is. AI is turning out to be a fairly competitive but “normal” product. Companies carving out niches on cost, quality, and speed.

If it was a winner take all OpenAI’s head start would have been decisive. For years ChatGPT was far ahead of everyone, then Anthropic released Opus 3, then OpenAI released 4o, then in mid 2025 it seemed like everyone had strong reasoning models including Google with Gemini 2.5, and now Claude is probably the best coding model. So taking the top spot is not a guarantee you can hold it.

Also the top model becomes a prime target for distillation, making it easier for competitors to keep up.