I think OpenAI having the best model still isn't enough. The AI marketplace isn't really in a race to the top, it's in a race to the mass market middle. If Gemini is good
enough for the majority of people to complete the majority of tasks they want to then market effects and bundling can get an already dominant company like Google to take over the market. And that's without considering the integration possibilities, e.g. Gmail and Google Docs.
That doesn't mean everyone will use Gemini. As a software engineer I prefer Claude Code and will pay good money for it. I'm sure there will be plenty of other specialisms that will have preferred models. But OpenAI's valuations are based on the idea that it's going to be everywhere, for everything, all the time. And I'm skeptical. ChatGPT Pro is a $200 a month product. That's not a mass market proposition.
