Open Source's Dominance in AI and Corporate America
Open source AI is predicted to win over corporate America, with companies moving their spend away from frontier models.
From Open source is going to win it all: Harvey proves it | E2328 · Aug 21, 2026
Key points
- OpenAI and similar companies are spending millions monthly on open source AI.
- Companies will shift their spend from frontier models to open source.
- Open source will dominate as the majority of tokens in corporate America.
- Enterprises prefer open source to avoid giving intelligence to competitors.
What they discussed
In this chapter, the discussion revolves around the growing dominance of open source AI in the corporate world. It is estimated that companies like OpenAI are spending around 10 million a month on open source AI, and this trend is expected to continue with other companies like Lovable or 11 Labs. The speakers predict that 99% of the spend by these companies will move away from frontier models to open source, with any remaining spend being used for distillation purposes. The key reason behind this shift is the preference of enterprises to keep their intelligence within their organizations rather than giving it to competitors who might use it to build the final company. This move towards open source is seen as a definitive win for open source AI, as it is expected to capture the majority of tokens in corporate America.
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Transcript of this segment
I'm going to say 10 million a month with OpenAI. >> Wow. >> I would say Lovable or 11 Labs or, you know, cursor. Those level of companies also probably were spending 10 or 20 or 30 million a month with the open AIS and anthropics of the world. Those customers, let me be clear, are going to move their spend. 99% of their spend is coming off the Frontier models. And any spend they do have with the Frontier models is likely, even if it's like 5% of their spend, to be them doing distillation. It's going to be them doing distillation. In other words, they're going to be spending 5 million a year or 1 million a month in order to pull information out of the frontier of models. Open source is going to win it all. Open source >> is going to win it all. >> There you go. >> I'm saying it now definitively. Two and a half years ago, three years ago, I said, you know, open source could win it. Now I'm telling you, open source is going to win it all. What do I mean by win it all? The majority of tokens, the overwhelming majority of tokens in corporate America will not be on the frontier models. It will be inside those enterprises. Why? They don't want to give their intelligence to somebody who wants to build the final company. >> As Gavin Baker discussed two weeks ago on Allin, >> right? >> If if Anthrop is going to pop off at cocktail parties or internally telling