AI industry insiders delivered a surprising reality check at the annual Cerebral Valley conference in San Francisco. More than 300 AI company founders, investors, and engineers participated in an anonymous survey revealing growing skepticism about the industry's hottest companies and a major shift in sentiment away from OpenAI.
Survey participants predict OpenAI will reach 30 billion dollars in revenue by 2026, representing solid growth but not the explosive trajectory many expected. More telling, when asked which private companies they would invest in today, Anthropic topped the list ahead of OpenAI, signaling changed priorities among those building the technology.
The predictions suggest an industry shifting from hype to fundamentals where even OpenAI faces scrutiny and practical applications matter more than artificial general intelligence timelines. As Replit CEO Amjad Masad noted onstage, if you are competing on price then maybe you do not have a business.
Survey participants expect Nvidia to reach a 6 trillion dollar valuation by 2026, demonstrating continued confidence in the hardware enabling AI advancement. The declaration of AGI has been pushed to 2030 in insider expectations, moving the goalposts further than many optimistic public projections.
Perplexity topped the list of startups insiders would short, suggesting skepticism about the AI search company's business model sustainability. Meta was notably absent from future AI leadership predictions despite significant investments in its Llama model family.
The company was not mentioned among models likely to lead LM Arena rankings by 2026 according to survey results. Instead, Chinese model Qwen from Alibaba cracked the top five, signaling how quickly the competitive landscape is shifting as many companies fine-tune open-source Chinese models rather than Meta's offerings.
When it comes to model leadership next year, insiders still give OpenAI the edge followed by Anthropic and Google's Gemini. However, the preference for investing in Anthropic over OpenAI despite this technical leadership prediction reveals a disconnect between model quality and business fundamentals.
The survey reveals other dynamics reshaping venture capital preferences. Andreessen Horowitz topped the list of VC firms with the most enviable AI portfolios followed by Khosla Ventures and Sequoia. These firms have distinguished themselves through early bets and deep technical expertise in evaluating AI companies.
The conference atmosphere reflected an industry maturing rapidly according to attendees. Gone are the days of founders predicting humanity's demise by GPT-10. Instead, focus has shifted to building profitable AI businesses with real market applications rather than chasing arbitrary capability milestones.
The leaked internal document indicating OpenAI aims for 30 billion dollars in 2026 revenue represents slightly more than double the 12.7 billion dollar figure projected for 2025. This growth rate, while impressive, falls short of the unprecedented scaling OpenAI once targeted for reaching 100 billion dollars by 2029.
Anthropic expects to generate around 4.7 billion dollars in revenue in 2025 with annual recurring revenue approaching 7 billion dollars. The company aims for 2026 revenue of 15 billion dollars, demonstrating aggressive growth targets that have won over industry insiders.
The Cerebral Valley survey offers a rare glimpse into what AI builders really think when cameras are not rolling. Their predictions suggest an industry where fundamental business metrics now matter more than visionary promises about transformative capabilities arriving on distant timelines.
