Replit shifts to OpenAI as primary AI partner, de-emphasizes Anthropic collaboration
Replit CEO Amjad Masad announced at TechCrunch Disrupt that the company is moving away from Anthropic partnership toward OpenAI, citing cost, performance, and partnership strength as factors.
What happened
Replit CEO Amjad Masad announced Thursday at TechCrunch Disrupt that the platform is no longer working with Anthropic as its primary AI partner, having shifted to OpenAI in August. Masad cited cost, performance, and partnership reasons for the change, stating that on Replit's internal benchmarks, Sol and Astra perform better on building code applications from scratch. OpenAI's ChatGPT is now the default model on Replit's platform, though users can still access Anthropic's Claude models if they choose. Masad noted that Replit was previously a top-five customer of Anthropic's, and the partnership had significantly helped the company's revenue growth. Later clarification indicated that while Anthropic models remain accessible, the shift in default should substantially reduce Replit's spending with Anthropic since most users opt for the default offering.
Context
The partnership change reflects a broader competitive dynamic in AI model providers, with cost and perceived performance now driving platform decisions. Replit's shift is significant because it represents a major customer moving from Anthropic to OpenAI—Replit was among Anthropic's top five customers. The change also signals how model selection in developer platforms is consolidating around perceived performance, with defaults acting as a powerful mechanism to influence adoption. The company is simultaneously reporting strong enterprise growth, with enterprise revenue rising from 2% last year to 15% of total revenue this year, suggesting its role as infrastructure for enterprise developers is expanding.
What's disputed
An unnamed insider familiar with the Anthropic-Replit partnership disputed Masad's characterization, stating the partnership was still in place. Additionally, evidence on Replit's website, blog posts, and social media showed the company promoting Anthropic's Claude models as recently as late September, including references to production deployments of Claude Fable 5.1 and Claude Opus 5.5 in Replit Agent.