// market expansion

Source: Financial Times (paywall)

OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic are deploying a classic enterprise playbook—subsidizing education to build long-term dependency and lock out competitors before students graduate into paying customers. Schools embracing these free or heavily discounted platforms face real switching costs once curricula are built around them and students expect those tools in the workplace, giving AI vendors durable market power that pricing alone couldn't achieve. This mirrors how Microsoft captured enterprise IT through student discounts, but occurs at a moment when education policy and student expectations around AI are still being formed.