Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI assistant, is taking firm steps toward going public. According to CNBC and Dataconomy, the company has already confidentially filed its S-1 with the SEC (the US securities regulator), and its investment banks are organizing meetings with potential institutional investors.

A historic valuation

The number circulating in the market is staggering: $965 billion. That valuation puts Anthropic at the doorstep of the trillion-dollar club, a threshold only companies like Apple, Microsoft or Nvidia have crossed in tech.

The company reached that valuation after closing a $65 billion Series H round, the largest private funding round in AI history.

Why now

The timing isn’t a coincidence. Anthropic has spent months racking up positive headlines:

  • The return of Claude Fable 5 to global availability in July, after two weeks of negotiations with Washington and the creation of a new safety classifier
  • The industry’s top score on the Future of Life Institute’s AI Safety Index (C+)
  • Growth in its enterprise user base, driven by Claude Sonnet 5

Head-to-head with OpenAI

If the IPO goes through, Anthropic will compete directly with OpenAI for investor money - OpenAI has also been exploring different corporate structures and conversations with Washington about its strategic role in American AI.

The rivalry extends to the product itself: Anthropic just launched enterprise tools that go head-to-head with ChatGPT Work and Gemini Enterprise, OpenAI’s and Google’s corporate products.

What it means for Claude users

Going public usually brings pressure to monetize more aggressively. However, Anthropic has historically been careful with pricing, and industry competition makes it hard to raise rates drastically.

The IPO money will most likely go toward Anthropic’s own compute infrastructure and accelerating new model development, which could translate into better performance for users over the medium term.

Analysts’ tentative date is October 2026, though nothing is confirmed and the markets will have the final say.