OpenAI's API strategy: best model at every price tier + dominate all modalities (text, code, image, video).
Sama's pitch is basically "we build the infra, you build the killer apps." Classic platform play—they're betting the most valuable ideas come from developers in the wild, not internal teams.
Translation: OpenAI wants to be the AWS of AI. Multimodal coverage + price segmentation = lock in every use case from hobby projects to enterprise scale. If they nail cost-performance across the board, they become the default API for anyone shipping AI features.
The real question: can they actually maintain "best model" status across all modalities while competitors like Anthropic, Google, and open-source models keep pushing? Price wars + model quality arms race = interesting next 12 months.
Sama's pitch is basically "we build the infra, you build the killer apps." Classic platform play—they're betting the most valuable ideas come from developers in the wild, not internal teams.
Translation: OpenAI wants to be the AWS of AI. Multimodal coverage + price segmentation = lock in every use case from hobby projects to enterprise scale. If they nail cost-performance across the board, they become the default API for anyone shipping AI features.
The real question: can they actually maintain "best model" status across all modalities while competitors like Anthropic, Google, and open-source models keep pushing? Price wars + model quality arms race = interesting next 12 months.