Why not Claude?
Choose honestly. We do.
Choose a big AI lab when…
- Your main work is cutting-edge science, math, or code
- You need the newest features the day they come out
- You have your own AI staff and do not need setup or training
Choose Change Agent when…
- You care where your data lives and who profits from it
- Your work is advocacy, organizing, communications, development, or research
- You want your org’s knowledge and voice in every draft
- You need civic and public data built in
- You run campaigns or electoral programs
- You want real people to help set it up and stick around to support you
Many of our customers keep a ChatGPT or Claude account for special tasks and run their organization on Change Agent. That’s just using the right tool for the job.
That’s a low count of what the big AI labs have raised. We can’t match it. That’s kind of the point.
Five deals make up most of their funding. OpenAI raised $40 billion in March 20253, then $122 billion more a year later4. Anthropic raised $13 billion5, then another $30 billion6. xAI raised $20 billion7. Money like that is not a gift. The people who give it expect their investment back, with more on top, so it really matters where it came from.
The same few giants sit on every side of every deal
OpenAI started as a nonprofit. In October 2025 it finished turning into a for-profit company, with Microsoft holding 27%8,9. Amazon put $50 billion into OpenAI’s latest round4 and holds $8 billion of Anthropic10. Court filings put Google at 14% of Anthropic11. Microsoft and Nvidia promised Anthropic up to $15 billion more, and Anthropic agreed to buy $30 billion of Microsoft’s cloud in return12. The same few giant companies sit on every side of nearly every deal.
Governments you didn’t choose own a piece too
MGX, a fund owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, has money in OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI, plus a piece of Stargate2,13. In July it closed a $49 billion AI fund13. Qatar’s government fund is in Anthropic5 and xAI7. When your organization pays a big lab, part of the profit goes to governments you didn’t choose.
Money that big has to come back, and it started this year
As of late 2025, OpenAI expected to spend $115 billion more than it makes through 202914. That money has to come back somehow. This year it started to. Ads showed up in ChatGPT, tailored to match “the topic of your conversation, your past chats”15. Your chats also help train their models. OpenAI trains on your chats unless you turn it off16. Claude asks you to choose, and keeps your data for five years if you say yes17. Gemini trains on your chats by default, and humans read some of them18.
None of this is a scandal. It is just how money that big works: the product ends up serving the people who paid for it. We built Change Agent to serve the people who use it. That’s the entire difference.
Where we win
Not benchmark scores. Real advantages for the work you do every day.
The first draft already sounds like your organization
Grant proposals, member emails, campaign plans, policy briefs, translations. Our model is tuned for this work and loaded with your organization’s knowledge. The first draft sounds like you.
Campaign money, grants, 990s and 50 states, in every seat
Every seat comes with Civic Intelligence: campaign money, foundation grants, IRS 990s, bills in all 50 states, and community data for every place in America. Could you wire public data into a big chatbot yourself? Sure, with enough time and engineers. We already did it, and we keep it current.
Their rules ban the work you were hired to do
OpenAI’s rules ban “political campaigning, lobbying, foreign or domestic election interference”19. Anthropic’s rules block targeted campaign work20. Read your vendor’s rules before you build your program on their tool. Our rules were written for this work.
You talk to someone who knows your org, not a ticket line
We set up your integrations, build your workflows with you, and train your team. When something breaks, you talk to a person who knows your org, not a ticket line at a company with 900 million users1.
Your AI use should not fight your mission
Small, efficient models sized for the work. By our own count, about 1,500 of our users run on roughly the power one refrigerator uses in a month. Your AI use should not fight your mission.
Where the big AI tools win
If this describes your daily work, use their products for it. No hard feelings.
Their newest models beat ours at the frontier
If your job is cutting-edge science, math, or engineering, their newest models will do a bit better than ours. We won’t pretend otherwise.
New tools plug into them first
New tools work with them first. If you need the newest feature the week it comes out, they will have it before we do.
They out-fund us, and that’s a choice we made
Yes, they out-fund us. That’s a choice we made. We could chase venture capital too. We choose not to, because that money always comes with strings attached (see above). So we’re a small team, built on revenue from the people we serve. Which makes this a pretty simple question: do you want to support grassroots work, including grassroots technology? Or do you want your dollars to fund Big Tech?
Every numbered claim on this page links here. Links checked August 4, 2026. If we got something wrong, tell us and we’ll fix it: sales@thechange.ai
- 1.ChatGPT passes 900 million weekly active users Search Engine Land, Feb 27, 2026
- 2.Announcing the Stargate Project ($500B AI infrastructure) OpenAI, Jan 21, 2025
- 3.OpenAI closes $40 billion round, largest private tech deal on record CNBC, Mar 31, 2025
- 4.OpenAI valued at $852 billion after completing $122 billion round Bloomberg, Mar 31, 2026
- 5.Anthropic raises $13 billion at $183 billion valuation Reuters, Sep 2, 2025
- 6.Anthropic raises $30 billion Series G at $380 billion valuation TechCrunch, Feb 12, 2026
- 7.xAI raises $20 billion from investors including Nvidia, Fidelity, QIA CNBC, Jan 6, 2026
- 8.OpenAI completes for-profit restructuring; Microsoft holds 27% stake CNBC, Oct 28, 2025
- 9.Built to benefit everyone (restructuring announcement) OpenAI, Oct 28, 2025
- 10.Amazon and Google have poured billions into Anthropic Fortune, Jun 4, 2026
- 11.Google owns 14% of Anthropic, court filings show Data Center Dynamics (citing NYT), 2025
- 12.Microsoft, Nvidia and Anthropic announce strategic partnerships (up to $15B investment; $30B Azure commitment) Microsoft, Nov 18, 2025
- 13.OpenAI and Anthropic backer MGX closes $49 billion AI fund CNBC, Jul 1, 2026
- 14.OpenAI expects business to burn $115 billion through 2029 CNBC, citing The Information, Sep 6, 2025
- 15.Testing ads in ChatGPT OpenAI, Feb 9, 2026 (updated May 2026)
- 16.How your data is used to improve model performance OpenAI Help Center, current
- 17.Updates to consumer terms: model training and 5-year retention Anthropic, Aug 28, 2025
- 18.Gemini Apps Privacy Hub (training and human review of consumer chats) Google, current
- 19.OpenAI Usage Policies (political campaigning and lobbying) OpenAI, effective Oct 29, 2025
- 20.Anthropic Usage Policy (targeted campaign activities) Anthropic, effective Sep 15, 2025
Built for your work.
On purpose.
Try it on your real work for a month. Put a grant proposal, a member email and a policy brief through both and see which one sounds like your organization.