ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: 2026 WILL SEE THE END OF THE BETA FACTOR AND THE RETURN OF MICROANALYSIS 2/3

The battle for AI supremacy is currently fought among five distinct strategic forces. OpenAI/Microsoft serves as the Catalyst and innovator, dominating API adoption with models like GPT-4o. Google is the Awakened Giant, leveraging its Gemini family and unmatched ecosystem (Search, Android) to compete on performance. Meta is the Open-Source Champion, offering its Llama models freely—a "scorched earth" strategy challenging proprietary dominance. New challengers like Anthropic (the safety-focused alternative) and Mistral AI (the European champion) complete the competitive landscape.