The AI agent market in Singapore: Claude unexpectedly catches up with ChatGPT
The artificial intelligence market in Singapore's startup ecosystem is undergoing a fundamental shift. Anthropic's Claude is experiencing explosive growth, rapidly closing the significant gap with OpenAI's dominant ChatGPT. According to fresh data from fintech platform Aspire, the number of paying Claude customers among Singaporean startups has surged by 258% over the past year, while their spending on this service has increased 17-fold.
Just a year ago, the situation looked fundamentally different: OpenAI had more than four times as many paying startup customers as Anthropic. Today, that gap has narrowed to just 1.5 times. Claude's share of total startup spending on AI platforms has reached an impressive 37%.
This is not an isolated success of a single player, but a reflection of a large-scale trend. The total number of Singaporean startups adopting AI tools has grown by 42%. Moreover, companies are becoming increasingly sophisticated and diversified: the number of firms simultaneously using three or more AI platforms has more than doubled.
Analytical Commentary: Claude's growth is not just a statistical anomaly. Anthropic is successfully positioning itself as a safer and more controllable alternative, which is particularly important for startups working with sensitive data. If growth rates persist, we may witness the formation of a true duopoly in the AI agent market, where Claude and ChatGPT will share roughly equal shares within the next 12–18 months. Investors and founders should closely monitor this trend — it is changing the rules of the game for the entire ecosystem.