OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei declined to hold hands during a group photo at the India AI Impact Summit, where they appeared alongside Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other tech leaders.
The moment occurred as Modi lifted Altman and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai's hands to applause, but Altman and Amodei instead raised fists while standing side by side, signaling heightened rivalry.
Both CEOs had delivered keynote speeches at the event, underscoring their companies' competition in the AI market, specifically for dominance with their chatbot models ChatGPT and Claude.
The incident reflects mounting tensions as OpenAI and Anthropic compete globally to establish their models as the default AI assistant, with recent disputes over issues such as advertising in AI further highlighting their rivalry.