Anthropic will battle Google, Meta, and Apple for consumer AI supremacy

OpenAI shut down Sora on March 24th, just as the groundswell of true consumer AI adoption was beginning. The company that defined AI 1.0 walked away from the one product most likely to teach America how to actually use artificial intelligence. Apple, Meta, and Google are now positioned to own what comes next. ELI analyzed the behavioral signals of 182 million Americans to map exactly where the country stands on its path to becoming an AI nation — and which companies are best positioned to seize the opportunity.

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164 Million Active US users of AI tools still in the early stages of leveraging AI effectively

9.6 Million Americans downloaded Sora since its launch in September 2025

$1 Billion: Disney's big bet on Sora, now set to be cashed in by a competitor.

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AI POWER USERS · 11 MILLION PEOPLE

Daily, multi-platform, deeply integrated. These are the Americans who bent AI to their workflow before anyone else noticed it was possible. Predominantly male, technically fluent, and already running on tools most professionals haven't heard of. They don't use AI like a search bar. They use it like infrastructure, and are building the playbook that others will eventually follow.

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AI CREATORS · 8 MILLION PEOPLE

Active makers on TikTok, YouTube, Twitch, and Instagram who have started building with AI as part of their creative process. Entrepreneurial, LinkedIn-focused, and quietly anxious about their place in an AI-driven economy. These Creators were the natural community for Sora the bridge product between passive consumption and active creation. OpenAI built it, then walked away from it. This population sits unclaimed.

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AI NIBBLERS · 68 MILLION PEOPLE

The unconverted majority. They have ChatGPT. They use it the way a previous generation used YouTube as television and the internet as a magazine: active in the medium but largely unaware of its capacity. The most well-read individuals in this analysis, fluent in Bloomberg and the WSJ, and yet using the most powerful creative tool in history just to rephrase emails. This presents the largest single opportunity in consumer AI.

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THE OPEN FIELD · 95 MILLION PEOPLE

Consumers who spend hours a day on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook — but haven't meaningfully engaged with any AI product yet. They are not resistant. They are not laggards. They are the late majority arriving on schedule, and right now, no one is competing for them. OpenAI just stopped trying. Apple, Meta, and Google are staring at an open field.

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What will happen when AI meets Wall Street in 2026?

1. META MOVES FIRST ON SORA’S 9.6 MILLION ABANDONED USERS.

Meta has the distribution, creator infrastructure, and institutional memory of watching TikTok eat their lunch once before. They also need a win in terms of consumer goodwill. Expect a Sora-style product inside Reels within months, built for the mass market. AI video moms become the Internet’s newest meme

2. GOOGLE GRABS THE MAJORITY OF CURRENT AI NIBBLERS.

These users are already living in Search, YouTube, and Gmail, with Gemini embedded across all three. The 68 million Americans using AI like a search bar are already Google's users. Google doesn't need to teach these people a new behavior; it just needs to deepen the one they already have.

3. OPENAI WILL FACE A CONSUMER CREDIBILITY CHALLENGE AS IT APPROACHES ITS IPO.

OpenAI is heading to public markets at an $850 billion valuation, having explicitly retreated from the 100 million Americans most likely to drive their next consumer growth wave. Anthropic, targeting its own IPO at $60 billion, has made no such retreat — and arrives at market with a cleaner consumer narrative and no Sora-shaped hole in its story. Enterprise revenue covers OpenAI's valuation today. Wall Street will eventually ask what comes next.

4. AMERICA’S AI ANXIETY WAVE WILL CREST, AND CRASH INTO THE 2026 ELECTION.

The fear of job displacement has risen from 37% to 57% over the past five years. The upcoming trigger—agentic AI eliminating visible white-collar tasks—will likely raise this concern above 60%, turning it into a political and regulatory hot topic that will directly impact the midterm election cycle.

5. APPLE USES ITS HARDWARE CUSTOMER BASE TO QUIETLY WIN THE OPEN FIELD.

Instead of creating a standalone AI product, Apple will integrate AI tools so seamlessly into its iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and other products that 95 million late majority consumers adopt it without ever consciously deciding to do so.

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DATA SOURCES FOR THIS EDITION OF THE ELI REPORT

Insights are based on Sooth’s patent-pending methodology, which analyzes over 100 million intent signals from 220 million anonymized US adults to predict, with 91% accuracy, how their emotional, practical, and situational needs will influence their buying decisions and the subsequent impact on people, businesses, and the economy. In addition, the following sources were used for corroborating data and the qualification of predictive insights:

U.S. consumer AI population projections: Sooth ELI platform, March 2026 · AI weekly usage 52% of U.S. adults: Edison Research at SSRS, February 2026 · ChatGPT 36% weekly U.S. usage: Edison Research, February 2026 · 194.9M active U.S. AI users: YouGov, 2026 · 31% of Americans never used AI: YouGov, 2026 · AI anxiety 37% → 57% trend: Pew Research 2021 & 2024, Resume Now 2025, APA Stress in America 2026 · OpenAI shuts down Sora: OpenAI, March 24, 2026 · Sora peak 3.3M downloads, decline to 1.1M: Appfigures, 2026 · Disney $1B partnership collapsed: Variety, March 2026 · Anthropic $380B valuation, Series G $30B: CNBC, February 2026 · Anthropic IPO target October 2026, $60B raise: Bloomberg, March 2026 · OpenAI $850B valuation, $120B round: March 2026 · Small populations scaled for visibility in chart: editorial standard · Rogers Adoption Curve (or Diffusion of Innovations): Everett Rogers 1962

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About Sooth & ELI

Sooth is the predictive intelligence company decoding the 93% of human decisions driven by emotional, practical, and situational needs. Powered by ELI — Sooth’s exclusive Emotional Logic Interface — Sooth uncovers hidden signals, turning audience behavior into predictive foresight. Sooth’s patent-pending methodology uses artificial intelligence to cross-reference more than 100 million intent signals with data on 300 million individuals worldwide to predict buyer tendencies with 91% predictive accuracy. For more information, visit soothbetold.com.

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