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`The Great Frontier AI Lab Product War Is Just Beginning`

July 2025 (Updated September 2025)

The frontier AI labs are getting restless. For years, they've been building models and serving APIs. That's all changing.

OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and Meta have brought to market incredible intelligence capabilities and have captured massive attention. Now they're looking beyond models and APIs and toward actual products people use daily. This makes sense, as everyone is searching for new revenue streams and the lucky have market position to leverage.

I see raw opportunity for products that live in the latent space between AI intelligence and practical end user needs. But here's the kicker — when frontier labs build products, they don't just compete against others, they can quickly collapse entire market segments. This is bad news for a certain class of emergent AI startups and some incumbents who thought their vertical moats were safe.

`Frontier AI lab product directions — 2025 and beyond`

`AI Lab`	`Focus`	`Likely Products`
`OpenAI`	`Life assistant ecosystem`	`Advanced coding tools, AI browser, autonomous agents, voice interfaces, business platform integrations`
`Anthropic`	`Professional productivity`	`Coding assistants, writing platforms, intelligence for finance, health tech, and other business verticals`
`Google DeepMind`	`Product integration + solving hard problems`	`Google product AI embeds, medical/science/biology solutions, image and video understanding/generation, coding tools`
`Meta Superintelligence`	`Hardware + platform`	`Wearables AI integrations, Meta product AI embeds, open source tools`

The wider implication? Many of today's AI startups will need to find new ways to add value quickly when frontier AI labs release competitive products. The next 12-24 months should be interesting to watch.

`Frontier AI Lab Product Strategy Updates`

September 2025

• James Campbell on Twitter: OpenAI Pulse, a daily briefing of everything going on in your life...yet another step towards ChatGPT becoming a true personal assistant.

• Anthropic's new Keep thinking ad.

• Deedy Das on Twitter: "I read through every single job posting on OpenAI's career page. Here's everything they're working on and who they compete with.

August 2025

• Others in the industry are witnessing the AI lab productization trend play out. Here is some strategic advice from a VC to founders on how to potentially survive this new paradigm.

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`About The Author`

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⇒ ABOUT

Joy Larkin is a technologist in Silicon Valley. She likes robots and is excited for Superintelligence.

Frontier AI Lab Tracker AI Market Maps: Curated Intelligence from Leading VCs, Analysts, and Practitioners