OpenAI acquires Astral: is it enough to catch up with Anthropic's Claude

OpenAI said on Thursday it will acquire Astral, as the ChatGPT maker doubles down on artificial intelligence-powered coding tools to compete more aggressively with rivals such as Anthropic.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the acquisition will integrate Astral’s suite of Python-focused developer tools into OpenAI’s coding system, Codex, expanding its capabilities and reach among software developers.

The move underscores OpenAI’s growing focus on enterprise and developer use cases, as competition in the AI coding tools market intensifies.

Codex growth signals rising developer adoption

OpenAI said Codex now has more than 2 million weekly active users, marking a threefold increase in users and a fivefold jump in usage since the beginning of the year.

The rapid growth highlights rising demand for AI tools that can write software features, fix bugs and automate testing.

Originally launched as a command-line coding assistant, Codex has since been integrated into ChatGPT and expanded into a broader platform.

The company also rolled out a dedicated macOS app last month, signaling its ambition to build a comprehensive developer ecosystem.

Astral’s tools, widely used within the Python community, are designed to improve speed and reliability in software development.

Astral founder and CEO Charlie Marsh said the company’s open-source tools would continue to be supported after the deal closes.

Competition from Anthropic's Claude intensifies

The acquisition comes amid intensifying competition from Anthropic, whose Claude family of models has gained traction among enterprise customers.

Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei told CNBC in January that enterprise users account for roughly 80% of the company’s business.

Anthropic has been rapidly expanding its offerings, including the launch of Claude Opus 4.6 earlier this year, aimed at improving coding capabilities and handling complex, long-running tasks.

While the Opus 4.6 was its first launch of 2026, it came just months after the company released three others — Claude Opus 4.5, Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Claude Haiku 4.5 — late last year.

The company has also integrated its coding assistant, Claude Code, into workplace tools such as Slack, allowing developers to automate tasks directly within chat workflows.

According to data from Ramp, Anthropic is now capturing more than 70% of spending among companies adopting AI tools for the first time, a sharp shift from near parity with OpenAI just weeks earlier.

Claude Code’s dominance is not merely a revenue story.

The product triggered a $1 trillion sell-off in technology stocks last month, as investors feared AI could render software development firms largely obsolete.

A subsequent announcement that Claude could modernise COBOL-based legacy systems further rattled markets, sending IBM shares to their steepest single-day decline in 25 years.

OpenAI's strategic shift toward productivity and business users

OpenAI’s acquisition of Astral aligns with a broader strategic pivot toward productivity and enterprise applications.

Senior executives at OpenAI are finalising plans for a significant strategic shift to refocus the company on coding and enterprise users, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s chief of applications, outlined the proposed changes during an all-hands meeting, saying leadership, including CEO Sam Altman and chief research officer Mark Chen, is actively evaluating which areas to scale back.

Staff are expected to be informed of the decisions in the coming weeks, the report added.

Simo has described the competitive pressure from Anthropic as a “wake-up call,” urging a stronger focus on winning back developers and enterprise clients.

Recent partnerships also reflect this direction.

Design platform Figma has integrated Codex into its tools, enabling users to create and modify designs within coding environments, shortly after announcing a similar collaboration with Anthropic.

AI race reaches inflection point

Several Fortune 500 executives told Axios they are reluctant to commit to a single AI model at this stage, citing the rapid pace of technological change.

The intensifying competition comes at what Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire described as an “inflection point” in the AI race, according to the report.

Recent releases from both Anthropic, OpenAI and even the new open source agent framework called OpenClaw represent "one of the most profound changes in our technology landscape since, really, almost anything," Allaire said.