ARK’s Cathie Wood sees fierce AI battle among ‘Big Four,’ leaves Meta out
ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood pointed out that the AI sector is currently dominated by a “big four” of companies. The 69-year-old investor identified OpenAI, Anthropic, Elon Musk’s xAI, and Google’s Gemini as the main contenders, describing the race for supremacy as intense. She added that, in the end, this group of four could eventually shrink to just two.
“The number of companies competing, truly competing, in the large language model space has shrunk,” she told Bloomberg.
Wood noted that the recent “acquihires” by OpenAI and Meta—Meta not being part of her big four—highlight how the AI space is consolidating, with “other companies not making it.”
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OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, has been among the most active acquirers in the startup world this year. In 2025, it spent $6.4 billion on io, a hardware startup founded by former Apple designer Jony Ive, and $1.1 billion on the product-development platform Statsig. The company has also “acquihired” key talent from startups, including the team behind the coding assistant firm Alex.
Wood said that regarding AI consolidation, “the process has started,” though she added that the ultimate outcome is still uncertain. “Let’s see over time how they leapfrog one another, and they are doing that regularly,” she said.
Earlier this year, Wood had cautioned about slowing growth, but she has since shifted her outlook, suggesting that rising AI-driven productivity could drive inflation down to zero in the coming years. However, these gains have coincided with higher unemployment and last week’s Fed rate cut, which Chairman Jerome Powell partly attributed to younger workers facing difficulties in finding jobs.
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Wood argued that these productivity gains could benefit the AI sector overall, as businesses reduce their workforce while simultaneously boosting investments in AI services. “They’re willing to pay $20 a month. Some are willing to pay $200 a month, and those who are replacing PhDs, they’re willing to pay $2,000 a month or more,” she said.
Two of Ark’s ETFs have purchased roughly $16.3 million in ADRs (American Depository Receipts), investing in Alibaba’s shares traded internationally.
Wood, a staunch advocate of technology and innovation, focuses on high-growth tech companies through Ark’s ETFs, giving smaller investors a chance to participate in the tech sector.
Ark Investment made a notable bet on India’s HDFC Bank in 2017 but exited the position entirely by 2021. At present, the firm holds no stakes in Indian companies.