Episode 42: Who’s who in the AI Landscape?

Embedded IT
Jun 9, 2025
2 min read

Updated: Jan 16

Artificial intelligence continues to evolve at speed, and the market is filled with big-name players and thousands of smaller organisations building on their foundations. This episode explores who is shaping the landscape, which platforms dominate, and how procurement professionals can expect this space to shift.

If you want the foundational context first, we explain what AI is and how it developed before diving into the supplier landscape.

Understanding the major AI brands

AI is often associated with familiar names, and OpenAI is currently the most prominent. Their visibility comes largely from the success of ChatGPT, but they are backed heavily by Microsoft, which has helped drive widespread adoption. Even with that market share, the situation continues to shift.

A recent example involved a company called DeepSeek, a Chinese organisation that developed a model similar in performance to ChatGPT but at a fraction of the cost. It highlighted how quickly new entrants can emerge and how competitive the market is becoming.

Exploring the OpenAI product range

ChatGPT is only one part of the OpenAI portfolio. Another tool, Sora, generates video from simple prompts. While the results may still be rough around the edges, it demonstrates the pace of progress and how quickly accessible tools can produce sophisticated outputs.

Beyond that, ChatGPT serves as a foundation for countless other products. For example, its cognitive behavioural therapy model offers guidance based on CBT techniques. Many niche AI services are built on top of ChatGPT, giving it an even wider footprint.

Microsoft, co-pilot and embedded AI tools

Microsoft has tightly integrated AI into its product ecosystem. Co-pilot sits inside Microsoft 365, enabling users to generate presentations, documents or ideas through natural prompts. Although powered by ChatGPT under the surface, it is packaged as a productivity tool for everyday business use.

Other major AI vendors

While Microsoft and OpenAI currently dominate mindshare, many other major technology companies are active in this space.

Google offers products such as Gemini, and partners with Anthropic to support the Claude model.
Amazon Web Services includes Anthropic models within services like Bedrock.
IBM continues to develop Watson, which has been part of their AI strategy for years.

These partnerships and ecosystems show how quickly the market is diversifying.

European and open-source AI options

Some organisations prefer AI solutions based within the EU. Mistral, a French AI company, offers models such as Lhat, which are aligned with EU regulatory expectations. This makes it appealing for organisations that want alternatives to US-based AI platforms.

There are also community-driven ecosystems such as Hugging Face, which provide a collaborative environment for sharing open-source models and tools.

What this means for procurement professionals

Going forward, procurement teams should expect a mix of large, well-known AI vendors and smaller specialist startups. Many of these new companies build their products on established AI foundations, but offer unique features or domain-specific capabilities. Understanding the underlying technology, the partnerships involved, and the pace of change will be essential in selecting the right solutions.

For organisations exploring how AI products fit into their technology procurement strategy, get in touch.