AI Rivals Compete with Free Coding Tool Access OpenAI and Anthropic escalated their battle for AI developers this week, dangling free and expanded access to coding tools even as rising compute costs force the industry to rethink “all-you-can-eat” AI.

On Wednesday, the rivalry crystallized in near-simultaneous announcements. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company would offer new business customers “two months of free Codex usage” if they sign up within 30 days, calling Codex “the best AI coding product” and saying OpenAI wants to make it easy to try. Less than an hour later, Anthropic’s Claude team said it was boosting Claude Code’s weekly limits by 50% until July 13 for Pro, Max, Team and seat-based Enterprise users, adding: “We’re excited to see what everyone builds!”

These perks arrive as both firms chase enormous valuations: Anthropic has reportedly received investment offers valuing it at up to $800 billion, while OpenAI is “sitting at an $840 billion” valuation. To justify those numbers, each needs to lock in high-spending corporate accounts.

Anthropic, however, is also tightening how power users can consume its models. It is restoring support for outside agent tools on paid Claude plans but putting that usage behind a separate credit meter, giving subscribers a new monthly credit pool for third-party harnesses such as OpenClaw. The company says the changes reflect how “the majority of people use Claude,” but a post by Claude Code product manager Noah Zweben on X drew backlash, with some users calling the move “gaslighting” and threatening to switch to Codex.

Industry-wide, the episode highlights a structural problem: autonomous coding agents can generate thousands of requests and run continuously, pushing some companies, including ServiceNow and Uber, to burn through annual AI token budgets in months. Developers and open-source advocates are now watching how players like Anthropic respond, with some urging “more open-source from them” to maximize impact.

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