Quick Read
Anthropic’s revenue surged sevenfold to $65B annualized, supporting a planned $2 trillion IPO with $200B in revenue targeted by 2028.
Anthropic’s most powerful Fable 5 model stalled at just 11% of corporate AI spending, while the cheaper Opus 5 surpassed it within weeks.
If customers keep choosing cheaper ‘good enough’ models over frontier AI, Anthropic’s $200B revenue target by 2028 becomes significantly harder to reach.
Don’t wait: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just revealed his top 10 AI stocks. See the full list FREE now.
The AI market has entered a new phase. Early buyers were willing to pay almost any price for the most capable models, but businesses are now asking a more ordinary question: How much intelligence do we actually need for the job?
That shift is important because frontier AI companies have built their valuations around enormous spending on chips, data centers, and model training. Anthropic sits at the center of that bet. The private AI company is reportedly preparing for an October IPO at a valuation of $2 trillion or more — potentially surpassing the record set by SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX), which went public in June at $1.77 trillion.
The $200 Billion Revenue Bet
Anthropic’s growth numbers explain why investors are willing to entertain a $2 trillion valuation. Its annualized revenue run rate jumped from roughly $9 billion at the end of 2025 to $47 billion in May and more than $65 billion by the end of July. Reuters reported that Anthropic is projecting roughly $190 billion to $200 billion of revenue in 2028.
A $2 trillion valuation against $200 billion of 2028 revenue would represent roughly 10 times sales. That’s hardly a bargain, but it looks less extreme if Anthropic can actually compound revenue at anything approaching its current pace.
There is evidence supporting the bull case. Anthropic told investors it had 6,000 customers spending at least $100,000 annually, while it recorded its first adjusted operating profit in the second quarter and expects to remain profitable in the third.
Don’t wait: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just revealed his top 10 AI stocks. See the full list FREE now.
But a new Financial Times report introduces a problem that investors cannot simply wave away.
24/7 Wall St.
A $2 trillion valuation meets a cutthroat market. As Anthropic aims to surpass SpaceX, customers are already choosing ‘good enough’ over the most expensive AI. © 24/7 Wall St.
The Most Expensive Model Isn’t Winning
According to the site, spending on Anthropic’s most powerful and expensive model, Fable 5, has plateaued at only about 11% of spending on Anthropic’s tools more than two months after launch. The data comes from Ramp’s analysis of corporate spending. More importantly, Anthropic’s cheaper Opus 5 had already surpassed Fable 5 in business spending shortly after its late-July release.
