The Briefing RoomApril 9, 2026via The Verge AI
The AI industry’s race for profits is now existential
Why it matters
As Anthropic and OpenAI race toward mega-IPOs with hundred-billion-dollar revenue projections, compute costs from AI agents are forcing both companies to make hard product and pricing decisions. The question isn't whether these companies can be profitable—it's what they'll sacrifice to get there.
Key signals
- OpenAI shut down Sora (video generation) to redirect $1B Disney deal compute toward Codex agents
- Anthropic moved OpenClaw users from standard subscriptions to pay-as-you-go pricing due to compute burn
- AI agents use far more compute than anticipated, forcing token-burn management
- OpenAI at $850B valuation (recent $122B raise)
- Both companies targeting IPO with revenue/profitability projections in hundreds of billions by end of decade
- CEOs signaling expectation that some AI companies will 'fail in spectacular fashion'
- Leaked projections show companies facing 'make-or-break moment' on path to profitability
The hook
OpenAI killed Sora. Anthropic banned OpenClaw. The AI industry's $500B bet just hit the monetization cliff.
Today on Decoder, let’s talk about the looming AI monetization cliff, and whether some of the biggest companies in the space can become real, profitable businesses before they careen right off it.
My guest today is Hayden Field, who’s our senior AI reporter here at The Verge. She’s been keeping close tabs on both Anthropic and OpenAI, and how these two companies in particular tell us a whole lot about the AI industry in 2026.
You’ve certainly heard a version of the monetization cliff story before. The biggest AI firms are built off the back of hundreds of billions in capital investment, and they’re linked to even greater amounts of forward-looking investment in data center build-out, chips, and other infrastructure spend. At some point, the profits have to materialize, or the bubble pops. Maybe AGI arrives, maybe the economy crashes, who knows.
You’ve heard me ask some version of this question to scores of CEOs here on this show, and a majority of them have hinted toward the bubble popping — they think some companies will fail in spectacular fashion, some will succeed, and the opportunities, especially the money, are simply too big to ignore. We’re doing this, whether we want to or not — the market depends on it.
Verge subscribers, don’t forget you get exclusive access to ad-free Decoder wherever you get your podcasts. Head here. Not a subscriber? You can sign up here.
So these last few weeks have felt like a very important inflection point, as both Anthropic and OpenAI have started to react to the reality of needing to go public — needing to make money,
The catalyst for this change is AI agents, and products like Claude Code and Cowork, as well as the open-source OpenClaw and OpenAI’s Codex, have radically changed how these companies are thinking about their resources. And this is starting to affect how they behave — the products they support or suddenly kill, the restrictions they impose on customers, and the money they’re willing to burn toward their next...
Relevance score:78/100