June 2, 2026 Artificial intelligence company Anthropic is moving closer to becoming a publicly traded company after confidentially filing paperwork for an initial public offering with U.S. regulators. The filing comes just days after the company announced a massive funding round that pushed its valuation to an eye-catching $965 billion, making it one of the most valuable startups in the world.
The company confirmed Monday that it had submitted a confidential filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed IPO of its common stock. Anthropic said the filing gives it the option to go public once regulators complete their review process, though the company emphasized that the timing will depend on market conditions and other factors.
For now, Anthropic has not disclosed how many shares it plans to offer or what price investors might pay.
The move represents another milestone in the company’s rapid rise from a relatively unknown AI research startup founded in 2021 to one of the dominant players in the artificial intelligence industry. Anthropic was launched by former leaders from OpenAI and has spent the last several years competing aggressively in the race to build increasingly capable AI systems.
Its flagship chatbot, Claude, has become one of the strongest challengers to ChatGPT, particularly among developers and enterprise customers. Anthropic recently introduced its latest model, Claude Opus 4.8, which the company says improves on previous versions in coding and professional knowledge work.
The company’s financial growth has been equally dramatic. Anthropic says it is now generating annualized revenue of approximately $47 billion through the sale of AI products and services used by businesses and consumers.
That growth has helped propel Anthropic ahead of OpenAI in terms of valuation and reported revenue, while also putting it ahead in the race toward becoming a publicly traded company.
Many industry observers expected OpenAI to reach Wall Street first.
“I think we were all expecting OpenAI to go first, so it was a little bit surprising,” said Patrick Corrigan, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame who studies IPOs. He noted that public investors will inevitably compare the leading AI companies against each other, giving Anthropic a potential first-mover advantage.
The company’s IPO ambitions arrive amid broader excitement—and concern—surrounding the AI sector. Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX are all pursuing massive growth strategies while spending heavily on research, infrastructure and computing power.
Those investments have fueled debate about whether the AI industry is experiencing a bubble similar to the internet boom of the late 1990s. Despite soaring valuations, many AI companies continue to spend more money than they generate.
Some analysts see Anthropic’s filing as a sign that a long-dormant IPO market may be coming back to life. Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities described the move as a significant step in Anthropic’s competition with OpenAI and suggested it could open the door for several major technology listings.
The comparison to the dot-com era is difficult to ignore. Corrigan noted that while some internet companies collapsed after going public, others fundamentally reshaped the economy.
“Whenever there is speculation, there’s also usually substance and fundamentals,” he said. “The question here is whether the price investors are going to end up paying is going to match up to the substance and fundamentals of what AI is really going to do in the real economy and as a business.”
Anthropic’s move also increases pressure on OpenAI. The ChatGPT creator reported in March that it was pursuing a valuation of roughly $852 billion following a $122 billion fundraising round. However, OpenAI has not yet announced any IPO filing.
Meanwhile, the competitive landscape continues to expand. SpaceX, which merged with Elon Musk’s xAI earlier this year, now carries an estimated valuation of $1.25 trillion and is also expected to pursue a public offering.
For investors, the prospect of Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX entering public markets around the same period could create one of the most closely watched technology investment cycles in years.
Industry analysts also argue that public listings could bring a greater level of transparency to companies that have largely operated behind closed doors while attracting hundreds of billions of dollars in private investment. Public companies must regularly disclose financial performance, investment plans and key business risks.
IDC analyst Tim Law believes that increased visibility would ultimately benefit the industry.
“We think of these as very mature organizations, but they’ve had to mature in a very short period,” he said.
Despite concerns about valuations, Law remains optimistic about the long-term outlook for AI. He argues that the technology’s growing adoption provides evidence that demand is real and expanding rather than purely speculative.
