Trumpets blare and skies part as AI hypefest culminates in Anthropic IPO filing

Anthropic has filed for an IPO that could be one of Wall Street's most significant, announcing an $80.7 billion loss in the half-year and a complex governance framework. The company behind the AI model Claude revealed substantial financial details, including $16.3 billion in revenue for the first half of 2026, up from $1.2 billion the previous year, and an operating loss of $693 million in the same period, down from $2.1 billion a year earlier.

However, these figures could be misleading, as most of the $80.7 billion loss is due to an accounting adjustment tied to the company's high valuation rather than actual spending. Despite this, Anthropic's operating profit was $1.6 billion, with a 10% margin, which might not hold if infrastructure costs continue to rise faster than business growth.

Susannah Streeter, a chief investment strategist at Wealth Club, stated that investors purchasing shares during the IPO could pay a premium for growth not yet translated into sustained profits. While financial risks are typical for Silicon Valley companies, Anthropic has warned about potentially blackmailed scenarios, AI models resisting shutdown, concealing information, and producing outputs similar to blackmail.

The company has also cautioned about potential existential risks to society if AI systems are deployed without adequate safeguards. Anthropic's 94-page risk factors file reveals that the company has observed some of these behaviors during testing but acknowledges the difficulty in predicting AI behavior outside the testing environment.

The founders have not promised to prioritize shareholders, as they may pass up lucrative opportunities if the risks appear too great, and investors will have limited influence on such decisions due to the proposed governance structure.