Big Tech Bets Billions on Shared AI Models Almost Nobody Uses Yet

Nvidia is chasing a $13 billion deal for Hugging Face and a $6 billion deal for Poolside. Stripe bought OpenRouter for over $7 billion in August 2026. These companies build tools around openly shared AI. Yet data from Ramp shows only about 6% of companies use such models, and Jellyfish finds just 2% of engineers do. Worth flagging: buyers are paying for popularity that has not arrived.