Anthropic's top-of-the-line AI model, 'Claude Fable 5,' is struggling to meet growing corporate demand, potentially disrupting the business model of AI companies.
In June 2026, AI development company Anthropic
Anthropic's best AI model struggles to attract users as cheaper tools thrive
https://www.ft.com/content/5ee49718-c258-4f01-aa32-7e5b76ae5245
Claude Fable 5 is Anthropic's top-of-the-line model, offering security measures to the high-performance AI model 'Claude Mythos 5,' which is capable of sophisticated cyberattacks, and is available to general users. Although its availability was temporarily suspended due to export control instructions from the US government, it resumed on July 1st.
According to the Financial Times, concerns that the U.S. government might tighten restrictions on access to Claude Fable 5 have already subsided, and political factors have become secondary to price and performance when companies choose which AI models to use.
However, an analysis based on spending data collected by corporate credit card company Ramp from 70,000 companies shows that corporate spending on Claude Fable 5 has stagnated and is not increasing significantly. This suggests that some companies may be starting to think that they don't necessarily need to use the top-of-the-line AI model, and can simply choose a cheaper AI model that performs well enough for their purpose.
The graph below shows the percentage of spending on Anthropic's AI models. The vertical axis represents the spending percentage based on June 1, 2026, and the horizontal axis represents the month (June to July 2026). Claude Fable 5 (dark blue) had a temporary suspension of availability after its release, so there is a period of interruption, but the spending percentage has been gradually increasing since July 1st. However, the growth in the spending percentage stopped shortly after the resumption of availability and has remained flat at around 11% since then. On the other hand, Claude Opus 5 , released on July 24th, has steadily increased its spending percentage, partly because it is cheaper than Claude Fable 5. It has already surpassed the spending percentage of Claude Fable 5.
The Financial Times notes, 'This breaks the traditional pattern of enterprise users defaulting on the most powerful model. Analysts and Anthropic investors say the main reason for this shift is the high price of the Claude Fable 5 and the fact that older models can meet most business needs.'
If this trend continues, it could shake up the traditional business model of AI development companies—which involves investing large sums of money to develop larger and more advanced AI models—and potentially bring about fundamental changes.
Miles Clements, a partner at venture capital firm Accel, which has invested nearly $1 billion (approximately 160 billion yen) in Anthropic, points out that 'most people don't need to use cutting-edge technology.'
Clements predicts that investment in cutting-edge AI will remain necessary for AI development companies to attract researchers by achieving noble ideals such as 'curing diseases.' However, he suggests that these technologies may serve more as showcases than as something that directly benefits users.
Anthropic's annualized earnings had surpassed $65 billion (approximately 10.35 trillion yen) by the end of July, representing about seven times its projected earnings for the end of 2025. However, investors had expected it to exceed $80 billion (approximately 12.75 trillion yen), so the result fell short of expectations.
The emergence of cheaper and more versatile AI models from Chinese companies than Anthropic, as well as the release of ' GPT-5.6 ' by competitor OpenAI in July, are encouraging companies to consider alternatives to Anthropic. GPT-5.6 is offered at a significantly lower price than Claude Fable 5, and is said to be a catalyst for OpenAI's recovery after a slump since early 2026.
The Financial Times article is also trending on the social news site Hacker News.
Anthropic's best AI model struggles to attract users as cheaper tools thrive | Hacker News
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49411102
One user pointed out that the sudden extension of the period during which users could access Claude Fable 5 at no additional cost, and the fact that token consumption varies depending on the AI model despite it being a pay-as-you-go system based on token usage, are causing user anxiety. The user stated, 'Most people don't want to have to worry about the supply status of AI. We want AI to be like electricity, unaffected by the ease or difficulty of supply. Nobody wants a situation where we don't know when the power company might cut off the supply.'
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in AI, Posted by log1h_ik