Anthropic, the company behind the AI assistant Claude, filed for an initial public offering on Monday in what experts predict could be one of the largest stock market debuts in history.
But alongside details of the company’s rapid business growth, the filing also contains several warnings and have renewed questions about whether the artificial intelligence industry is in a bubble.
In its 335-page filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Anthropic lays out its vision for artificial intelligence as “one of the most consequential technologies in human history,” while weighing concerns that AI could lead to “catastrophic or existential risks to humanity.”
The filing sets the stage for what some insiders have predicted could be a $2-trillion valuation for the company, despite Anthropic reporting an overall net loss of $9 billion.
Christian Dippel, a business professor at Western University, says that while many are asking whether there is an AI bubble and whether it will burst, he believes the more pressing question is which AI companies will survive in an increasingly competitive landscape.
“There (are) two big companies that are most associated with LLMs (large language models) that either need to IPO or they’re going to go bankrupt. And that’s Anthropic and OpenAI,” Dippel said.
He added that any edge a company gains doesn’t typically last long, and while Anthropic has made huge gains this year, there is increased competition from rivals including Chinese AI companies. He also noted that most consumers are not loyal to a specific company and often change agents depending on the task at hand.
“Even at the frontier, the differences are very temporary. You get a leg up, … and another big lab leapfrogs you. So, it’s really hard to see how you can get any competitive advantage in that space,” he said.
But not everyone agrees that Anthropic is a bad buy. The company reported revenue of $16.3 billion in the first half of 2026, growing 1,300 per cent-year-over-year. Gil Luria, head of technology research at D.A. Davidson, said Anthropic’s fundamentals are strong.
“They’re profitable on a cash flow basis,” he told BNN Bloomberg. “This is a company in very good shape that’s still growing.”
While Anthropic’s IPO could be the largest in history, it comes with warnings from both inside and outside the company.
“I would say I feel the same way that Anthropic feels: a lot of optimism and a lot of worry,” Matt Kennedy, a senior strategist at Renaissance Capital, told Reuters. “This could turn out to be, you know, the golden age, or, you know, these cyber incidents could multiply,” he said.
Anthropic could go public as soon as Nov. 16. The company has not said how many shares it intends to sell or at what price; those details are expected to be determined in the coming weeks.
