OpenAI vs AI21 Labs

By valuation, OpenAI is the larger company at $852B versus $1.4B — a 608.6x difference. Size can also be measured by team: OpenAI employs 4,000 people while AI21 Labs has 250 employees.

OpenAI has raised more in total funding at $127B, compared to AI21 Labs's $636M — a gap of $126.4B. Combined, the two companies have completed 10 known funding rounds.

OpenAI leads with an Awaira Score of 98/100, while AI21 Labs sits at 72/100. That 26-point gap reflects real differences in funding, scale, and traction — it's not a vanity metric.

OpenAI was founded by Sam Altman in 2015. AI21 Labs was founded by Yoav Shoham in 2017. Visit each company's profile on Awaira for a full founder biography.

OpenAI: OpenAI is an artificial intelligence research laboratory founded in 2015 and headquartered in San Francisco. The company develops and deploys large language models and foundation models that power conversational AI applications. Its flagship product, ChatGPT, launched in November 2022 and rapidly became one of the fastest-adopted applications in technology history, reaching 100 million users within two months. OpenAI also offers GPT-4, a more advanced language model, and provides API access to developers through its platform. The company operates in the foundation models category, competing directly with Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and Meta in developing transformer-based large language models. OpenAI's approach emphasizes training increasingly capable models using large datasets and computational resources. Notable applications include content generation, coding assistance, customer service automation, and research support across enterprises and consumer markets. OpenAI has secured substantial funding from diverse sources including Microsoft, which invested $13 billion, making it one of the most heavily funded AI companies. The company's valuation reached $500 billion as of recent funding rounds, reflecting investor confidence in the commercial potential of large language models. The organization transitioned from a non-profit structure to a capped-profit model to facilitate venture capital investment. Growth has accelerated significantly following ChatGPT's release, expanding its user base and enterprise adoption substantially. OpenAI created one of the first large language models to achieve mainstream consumer adoption through ChatGPT, establishing a dominant position in accessible AI applications. AI21 Labs: AI21 Labs is an Israeli foundation model company founded in 2017 that develops large language models and AI systems for enterprise applications. The company is best known for its Jurassic language model family, which powers various natural language processing tasks including text generation, summarization, and question-answering. AI21 Labs operates through both direct API access and integration with cloud platforms, serving customers across multiple industries. The company has positioned itself in the competitive foundation models landscape alongside OpenAI, Anthropic, and other providers, distinguishing itself through a focus on instruction-following capabilities and multilingual support. AI21 Labs has secured $636 million in total funding and achieved a $1.4 billion valuation, reflecting investor confidence in its technology and market approach. The company operates primarily through its cloud-based AI platform, offering researchers and developers access to its models. It has demonstrated growth through partnerships and enterprise adoption, though facing intense competition in the rapidly consolidating foundation models sector. AI21 Labs remains in Series D funding stage, indicating it has not yet pursued initial public offering. The company employs researchers with backgrounds in academia and industry, maintaining focus on advancing core language model capabilities and exploring commercial applications across sectors including content generation, customer service, and information retrieval. AI21 Labs combines deep research in language models with enterprise-focused API infrastructure to compete against larger foundation model providers.

OpenAI got there first, launching in 2015 — that's 2 years of extra runway. AI21 Labs didn't arrive until 2017. In AI, that kind of head start means more training data, deeper customer relationships, and a bigger talent moat.

OpenAI has about 4,000 employees; AI21 Labs has about 250. A bigger team usually means more revenue or heavier VC backing, but in AI, small teams can build at massive scale.

Yes — they're direct rivals. Both OpenAI and AI21 Labs compete in Foundation Models, targeting many of the same buyers. If you're evaluating one, you should be looking at the other.