Replit CEO Amjad Masad announces at TechCrunch Disrupt on Oct 17 that Replit Agent defaults from Anthropic to OpenAI
CEO Amjad Masad said Replit's public benchmark showed Sol and Astra outperform Claude on vibe-coded app building; Claude remains selectable by users; Anthropic sources denied the partnership had ended.
On October 17, Replit CEO and co-founder Amjad Masad announced on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 that OpenAI would replace Anthropic as Replit's default model provider, with Anthropic's Claude remaining selectable by users on the platform. Masad said: 'We publish a public benchmark as well, and consistently, Sol and Astra perform better on building vibe-coded applications from scratch. It was a decision based on both cost, partnership, and performance. And for all these reasons, we just felt like they were a better partner for now.'
Masad later clarified to TechCrunch over the weekend: 'Replit remains model agnostic. Our users can choose Anthropic's Claude or other supported models. OpenAI is now our preferred partner for powering Replit Agent, based on performance, economics, and the strength of our partnership.' An Anthropic source disputed that the partnership had ended, saying it remained in place. Replit's own website, blog posts, and social channels had promoted Claude Fable 5, Claude Fable 5.1, and Opus 5.5 as recently as a few weeks prior.
Masad disclosed Replit had been one of Anthropic's top five customers; enterprise went from ~2% of revenue last year to ~15% this year, with B2B now over 50% of revenue; Replit expects more than half of its 2027 revenue from enterprise and government customers. He also commented on AI safety: 'agents need a habitat — good orchestration, good error recovery, good safety and security and sandboxing, good networking, good identity and authorization. And once you figure all of that out, then you can deploy AI safely.'