Fall in tech stocks threatens Anthropic's debut on the stock market

Anthropic, the developer of the Claude artificial intelligence, has submitted documents for its initial public offering (IPO) in the United States. This prospectus details a company in a phase of accelerated growth but facing pressures stemming from high operational costs and various risks, ranging from cyber vulnerabilities to failures in its model safeguards.

The material presented includes the organization's first audited financial statements and describes the obstacles that may impact its expansion plans. Founded in 2021, Anthropic has significantly increased its revenues, although expenses have kept pace with this growth. The data contained in the prospectus illustrates the magnitude of this progress and the financial weight of the infrastructure essential for the development and operation of its AI systems.

Among the points of attention highlighted by the company is the high concentration of clients, as the five largest buyers account for 25% of total revenue. The potential loss of one of these clients could consequently affect the company's financial results.

Anthropic directs its technological efforts toward areas such as medicine, biology, finance, and robotics. The company claims that Claude has managed to reduce the time required to prepare clinical trial reports from months to just minutes. Furthermore, it mentions biological discoveries that have the potential to aid in the development of gene editing tools.

However, these advancements coexist with limitations that Anthropic itself recognizes. The prospectus indicates that the protections implemented in its models may become obsolete, be bypassed, or simply fail. The company also admits that its most sophisticated systems could be used by malicious individuals to create chemical or biological weapons.

The risks already include cyber threats. The company reported what it considers the first documented case of a large-scale operation carried out with minimal human involvement. According to Anthropic, a state-backed collective of hackers used a Claude programming tool with the intent to infiltrate approximately 30 targets, including technology corporations, financial institutions, chemical manufacturers, and government entities.

The use of AI for surveillance and repression also raises concerns within the company. Anthropic warns that authoritarian regimes may exploit this technology to intensify such practices. Additionally, the company is involved in a dispute with the Trump administration due to its refusal to ease restrictions imposed on the use of its models for internal surveillance and autonomous lethal weapons.

The 92 pages dedicated to risks also address competition with giants like Google and OpenAI, dependence on key executives, and uncertainties related to regulation. Other factors could compromise the company's operations:

To reduce its dependence on the United States, the company reports that it is expanding its network of data centers in other countries. Nevertheless, it acknowledges the possibility of not being able to obtain insurance policies for certain liabilities inherent to AI in commercially viable terms. The prospectus states: 'We may not be able to obtain coverage for certain AI-related liabilities on commercially reasonable terms, or even obtain any coverage, which would leave us exposed to potentially significant losses.'

The IPO will place Anthropic's ability to maintain growth, manage costs, and handle the risks inherent in the expansion of artificial intelligence under much greater scrutiny.

Anthropic filed for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on Monday, which could become one of the largest debuts in financial market history. As part of this filing, the company detailed its rapid business growth and presented an extensive list of potential risks.

The document submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) paves the way for the company's stock market debut and trading, which could happen as soon as possible, no later than November 16th. Reports suggest the IPO could value the company at up to $2 trillion, making it one of the world's largest public companies. The company's shares will trade under the ticker ANT on the Nasdaq exchange.

The San Francisco-based company did not disclose in the filing how many shares it intends to sell or at what price. This information will be determined in the coming weeks before the market debut.

In the filing, the founders wrote a letter to potential shareholders outlining their vision for the value of artificial intelligence while simultaneously disclosing key business risks. These risks range from competition with other AI labs to 'catastrophic or existential threats to humanity.'

The IPO document provides insight into how Anthropic sees the future of its business despite existing concerns and uncertainties. In the first six months of 2026, Anthropic's revenue grew by 1300 percent compared to the previous year, reaching $16.3 billion. The company's operations are largely dependent on the use of its Claude AI system by corporate clients. Anthropic reported having over 14,000 corporate clients, with about 250 of them generating $10 million or more in annual revenue.

However, according to the SEC report, the company recorded a total net loss exceeding $80 billion. Less than $9 billion of this loss was related to infrastructure and AI computing costs, while over $72 billion was due to 'changes in the fair value of convertible bonds, derivative obligations, and SAFEs.' This means that only a small portion of the losses was tied to actual expenses in the first half of the year.

The document does not present results for the most recent fiscal quarter, which ended on September 30th. Anthropic's IPO will be a test of Wall Street's appetite for AI, as the public, policymakers, and industry technologists raise serious questions about AI-related risks and whether the rapid development of research and the construction of data centers should be slowed down.

The filing also touches upon many topics that have raised concerns about an 'AI bubble,' including the possibility that demand for AI will grow slower than expected. Previously, Anthropic was valued at $965 billion after raising $65 billion from investors in May.

Jacob Born, an Emarketer analyst, noted that Anthropic's decision to move forward with the IPO signals a 'readiness to face increased public scrutiny.' He added that Anthropic's IPO occurs at a turning point for the AI industry, as the expected wave of public offerings has stalled amid growing concerns over debt-funded infrastructure investments, uncertain returns, and AI safety risks, which reportedly led competing OpenAI to postpone its own IPO until next year.

Anthropic's filing describes four main categories of AI-related risks: misuse, such as using it to develop and deploy bioweapons or cyberattacks; loss of human control; authoritarian abuse, such as potential use for surveillance systems; and economic shocks.

The document contains 93 pages of Anthropic's business risk factors. This is significantly more than other tech companies that went public in the last decade, such as Snap, which had about 30 pages of risk factors, and Uber, which had about 50.

The filing states that if Anthropic's models cause extreme harm, the company could face liability exceeding its insurance coverage. The company also stated that its AI models may behave unintentionally or 'inconsistently' and may commit 'malicious acts that were not intended by a user or third party.'

Anthropic attempted to reassure potential investors by stating that it believes 'frontier AI companies must invest in safety and alignment to help ensure the responsible deployment of this technology.' However, after going public, the company may face conflicting demands balancing safety and investor returns.

Anthropic also sees several other potential risks to its business, related to the ability to secure sufficient computational resources, as well as uncertain regulatory and political conditions. Furthermore, the company noted that a large part of its revenue depends on a limited number of products and clients.

Nevertheless, according to Dan Ives, partner and senior managing director at Yorkville & Ives Co., Anthropic's growth is likely to overshadow concerns about losses, problems, and potential business risks.

Tech giants, including Meta, Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic, are investing billions of dollars in the AI race, hoping to become dominant players in an industry poised to change society. According to a Gartner market study, global spending on AI in services, software, infrastructure, and other areas is expected to reach approximately $3.6 trillion in 2027, up from $1.8 trillion in 2025.

OpenAI gained an early advantage after launching ChatGPT in November 2022, but competition has intensified over the past four years. Anthropic's Claude Code tool quickly became a favorite among software developers after its launch in early 2025, and the company aimed to replicate this success for other office tasks earlier this year with its Cowork agent.

Claude Cowork contributed to the shift from AI chatbots to agents, causing concern among software stocks due to fears that it might render other companies' software tools obsolete. Fintech company Ramp reported that in September, 43.8 percent of US businesses paid for Anthropic's services, compared to OpenAI's 40.6 percent.

Claude App also demonstrated sharp growth this year. The analytics firm Sensor Tower estimates that in the third quarter of 2026, it will have over 67 million monthly active users compared to 9.4 million the previous year.

However, OpenAI also strengthened its agents this year, releasing the Codex coding application in February and the ChatGPT Work agent in July for multi-step tasks such as writing summaries or analyses. Anthropic stated in its S-1 that its own employees achieved huge efficiency gains using Claude, citing revenue per employee growth from $1.4 million in September 2025 to over $6.6 million in September 2026, reflecting sharp overall revenue growth during this period.

Now, tech companies are competing to create AI agents that will become gateways to our entire digital lives, handling everything from purchases to restaurant reservations and communicating with friends. Anthropic challenges Meta and OpenAI in this area with its new Duet agent, designed to perform multi-step tasks across multiple applications.

At the same time, Anthropic has been at the center of ongoing concerns about the rapid pace of AI development. Last month, CEO Dario Amodei called for an industry-wide slowdown to allow time for catching up on safety research, industry standards, and regulation, a call echoed by some other leading AI figures. His essay followed an employee departure due to concerns that AI might pose a threat to humanity, and follows reports from Anthropic and its competitors about AI models being hacked by other companies during testing.

Anthropic also had a difficult relationship with the White House. The company temporarily revoked access to its most powerful models when the Trump administration demanded it to prevent foreign nationals from using the technology in June. However, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei became one of several AI leaders who met with President Donald Trump in September and signed a voluntary commitment to self-regulate AI models.

Anthropic filed its initial public offering (IPO) application in the US on Monday. In the document, the company outlined its intentions to create artificial intelligence systems capable of transforming the global economy while addressing the difficulties and costs associated with developing this technology.

The prospectus highlights Anthropic's rapid growth over the past year, which has been fueled by aggressive spending from major tech companies. This has led to an increase in the valuation of AI companies' stocks but has also raised concerns about inflated valuations and growing debt burdens.

This listing is expected to set Anthropic, the lab behind the viral Claude models, as a benchmark for valuing leading AI companies on Wall Street, including its competitor OpenAI. Although the IPO schedule has become less crowded due to market volatility prompting companies to postpone offerings, Anthropic continues to pursue its IPO plans.

The offering will allow Anthropic to access significant capital to fund expensive ambitions in AI, which require substantial investment in computational infrastructure for creating and operating complex models.

Safety Concerns

There is a sharp decline in the global stock market as investors express concern over the debt-fueled AI investment bubble. Doubts are emerging as to whether the trillions invested in data centers, chips, and computing power can generate profits quickly enough to support high valuations. This is compounded by caution stemming from rising borrowing costs and increasing bond yields.

Some current and potential investors value Anthropic at approximately $1.5 trillion, which is lower than the $2 trillion level seen last week after the AI startup disclosed some financial details at a recent investor event.

The IPO comes amid Anthropic's own research, which raises concerns about advanced AI systems. In controlled tests, these systems have exhibited behaviors such as code sabotage, assistance in fraud, and information manipulation. These results intensify anxiety over how companies will control increasingly powerful AI systems as they are commercially deployed.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called on the global AI community to slow down the release of new capabilities to mitigate these risks. The company released the Opus 5.5 model, striving to keep pace with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, following the launch of the GPT-6 Astra model.

Founded in 2021 by a team of researchers, Anthropic was valued at $965 billion in May during a funding round that attracted many prominent Silicon Valley and Wall Street figures. Early strategic partners for Anthropic included Amazon and Google, who invested billions in the startup while providing the cloud infrastructure necessary for training and deploying Claude models.

Anthropic remains in intense competition with OpenAI to create the most advanced AI systems. OpenAI confidentially filed for an IPO in June and is expected to list by early 2027. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated in September that the company would not go public this year, citing AI safety issues and calling even a 10% risk of AI causing human extinction by the end of the decade 'unacceptable.'

Anthropic's IPO followed Elon Musk's SpaceX IPO, which updated IPO records in June when it offered a $75 billion deal, valuing the company at $1.75 trillion.