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Replit CEO Amjad Masad said at TechCrunch Disrupt that the company had stopped working with Anthropic, then clarified that OpenAI is now the preferred partner and default model for Replit Agent while Claude remains selectable. Because most users keep the default, the change could still move a lot of spend.
Replit has made OpenAI the default model provider for Replit Agent, its AI app builder, while keeping Anthropic's Claude models available to users who pick them[1][2]. The change came out in a confusing way: CEO Amjad Masad first said on stage that Replit had stopped working with Anthropic, then narrowed that claim two days later[1][2].
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Speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt on Thursday 15 October, Masad said Replit was no longer working with Anthropic, citing cost, partnership and performance[2]. "I think ChatGPT is better now," he said, adding that on Replit's internal and public benchmarks, "consistently, Sol and Astra perform better on building vibe-coded applications from scratch"[2].
On 17 October he clarified on X: "Replit remains model agnostic. Our users can choose Anthropic models as well as many other supported models." What he meant at Disrupt, he wrote, is "that OpenAI is now our preferred partner powering Agent based on performance, cost, and strength of our partnership"[1].
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TechCrunch points out that most Replit customers stick with the default model rather than choosing one, so moving the default to OpenAI could significantly reduce Replit's spend with Anthropic[2]. Masad said Replit had been one of Anthropic's top five customers until recently[2]. Replit announced its OpenAI partnership in August[2].
The relationship with Anthropic is not settled in public. A person familiar with it told TechCrunch the partnership is still in place, and a late-September Replit blog post named Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 and Fable 5.1 as models running in Replit Agent's production environment[2].
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If your team builds internal tools, landing pages or prototypes in Replit, the model behind your agent may have changed without you touching a setting. Re-run a few of your usual prompts, compare cost and output, and pin the model you want instead of relying on the default. More broadly, this is a reminder that platform defaults, not model launches, decide where most AI coding spend goes.
FAQ
Not entirely. Amjad Masad said on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt on 15 October 2026 that Replit was no longer working with Anthropic. On 17 October he clarified on X that Replit remains model agnostic, users can still choose Anthropic models, and OpenAI is now the preferred partner powering Replit Agent.
OpenAI's models are now the default for Replit Agent, according to TechCrunch. TechCrunch notes that most customers keep the default rather than choosing a model, so the change could significantly reduce Replit's spend with Anthropic.
Masad gave three reasons: cost, partnership and performance. He said Replit's internal benchmark and its public benchmark consistently show OpenAI's Sol and Astra models doing better at building vibe-coded apps from scratch.
TechCrunch reports that a person familiar with the relationship, who asked not to be named, said the Anthropic partnership is still in place. TechCrunch also found Replit promoting Anthropic models a few weeks earlier, including a late-September blog post citing Claude Fable 5 and Fable 5.1 in Replit Agent's production environment.
Yes, according to Masad. He says users can choose Anthropic's Claude or other supported models, so you can select a model on purpose rather than relying on the default.
Masad said enterprise was about 2% of revenue last year and is about 15% this year, with more than half of revenue coming from B2B. He told TechCrunch he expects more than half of revenue to come from enterprise and government customers in 2027. Replit is not sharing annual recurring revenue figures yet.
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