Blog Digest: Week of Feb 16-22, 2026

AI & Tech

How Will OpenAI Compete?

Ben Evans • Feb 19, 2026

A sharp analysis of OpenAI's competitive positioning as frontier LLM capabilities converge across providers. Evans makes the case that raw intelligence is becoming commoditized — DeepSeek, Google, Anthropic, and Meta are all reaching similar capability levels (as shown in the chart below). The question becomes: what's OpenAI's durable moat if not just having the smartest model?

Key insight: "The core technology is becoming a commodity. The question is what you build on top of it."

Frontier Language Model Intelligence, Over Time

Chart: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index v4.0 — showing capability convergence across providers from Nov 2022 to Jan 2026. Note how DeepSeek (green), Google (blue), and others have caught up to OpenAI (black) by early 2026.

Digest compiled from tracked feeds. Suggest a blog to add →