> Win the developers over and the rest will follow.

Will they really? Anecdotal evidence, but nobody I know in real life knows about Claude (other than it's an ordinary first name). And they all use or at least know about ChatGPT. None of them are software engineers of course. But the corporate deciders aren't software engineers either.

Normal people aren't paying for LLMs.

If they ever do Apple and Google will offer it as a service built into your phone .

For example, you could say ok Google call that restaurant me and My girlfriend had our first date at 5 years ago, set up something nice so I can propose. And I guess Google Gemini ( or whatever it's called at this point), Will hire a band, some photographers, and maybe even a therapist just in case it doesn't work out.

All of this will be done seamlessly.

But I don't imagine any normal person will pay 20 or $30 a month for a standalone service doing this. As is it's going to be really hard to compete against GitHub Copilot they effectively block others from scrapping GitHub.

Every single person I know who pays for an LLM is a developer who pays for Claude because of coding ability

Consumers don't have to consciously choose Claude, just like most people don't know about Linux. But if they use an Android phone or ever use any web services they are using Linux.

Most people I know in real life have certainly heard of ChatGPT but don't pay for it.

I think someone enthusiastic enough to pay for the subscription is more likely to be willing to try a rival service, but that's not most people.

Usually when these services are ready to grow they offer a month or more free to try, at least that's what Google has been doing with their Gemini bundle.

OP and the people who reply to you are perfect examples of engineers being clueless about how the rest of the world operates. I know engineers who don’t know Claude, and I know many, many regular folk who pay for ChatGPT (basically anyone who’s smart and has money pays for it). And yet the engineers think they understand the world when in reality they just understand how they themselves work best.

I use Claude Pro paid version every day, but not for coding. I used to be a software engineer, but no longer. I tried OpenAI in the past, but I did not enjoy it. I do not like Sam Altman.

My use cases: Generating a business plan, podcast content, marketing strategies, sales scripts, financial analyses, canned responses, and project plans. I also use it for general brainstorming, legal document review, and so many other things. It really feels like a super-assistant.

Claude has been spectacular about 98% of the time. Every so often it will refuse to perform an action - most recently it was helping me research LLC and trademark registrations, combined with social media handles (and some deviations) and web URL availability. It would generate spectacular reports that would have taken me hours to research, in minutes. And then Claude decided that it couldn't do that sort of thing, until it could the next day. Very strange.

I have given Gemini (free), OpenAI (free and Paid), Copilot (free), Perplexity (free) a shot, and I keep coming back to Claude. Actually, Copilot was a pretty decent experience, but felt the guardrails too often. I do like that Microsoft gives access to Dall-E image generation at no cost (or maybe it is "free" with my O365 account?). That has been helpful in creating simple logo concepts and wireframes.

I run into AI with Atlassian on the daily, but it sucks. Their Confluence AI tool is absolute garbage and needs to be put down. I've tried AI tools that Wix, Squarespace, and Mira provide. Those were all semi-decent experiences. And I just paid for X Premium so I can give Grok a shot. My friend really likes it, but I don't love the idea of having to open an ultra-distracting app to access it.

I'm hoping some day to be like the wizards on here who connect AI to all sorts of "things" in their workflows. Maybe I need to learn how to use something like Zapier? If I have to use OpenAI with Zapier, I will.

If you read this far, thanks.

They’ll use whatever LLM is integrated into the back end of their apps. And the developers have the most sway over that.

Maybe the software engineers should talk to the deciders then.