OpenAI says no to 2026 IPO: Should anthropic hit pause too?

OpenAI's decision to stay out of public markets in 2026, coupled with growing calls from AI industry leaders to slow the pace of frontier AI development.

The call to slow down the AI development has raised a bigger question for the sector: should Anthropic also reconsider its plans for a potential IPO?

Anthropic is reportedly moving towards a public listing around mid-October, even as concerns over AI safety, the enormous cost of developing frontier models and the sustainability of the industry's spending continue to grow.

The timing puts the spotlight not just on when Anthropic goes public, but on how investors will value a company whose future growth depends on continued spending on increasingly powerful AI models.

OpenAI's decision not to pursue an IPO in 2026 comes at a time when the company and other AI labs are facing increasing scrutiny over the pace at which frontier models are being developed and deployed.

The question for Anthropic is slightly different. Should it continue towards an IPO while the industry debates whether AI development itself needs to slow down?

For investors, the issue could ultimately come down to whether the huge valuations attached to AI companies can be supported by their underlying economics.

Ganesh Puvvula, Senior Enterprise Finance Technology expert, said public markets are likely to be more demanding than private investors when it comes to justifying an AI company's valuation.

“Public markets will probably be less patient with a valuation built largely on future potential. Once OpenAI and Anthropic list, investors will compare their growth with the cost of delivering it,” Puvvula said.

“Revenue will matter, but so will computing expenses, customer retention, contract quality, cash burn, capital spending, and progress toward positive cash flow,” he added.

That could make Anthropic's potential listing an important test for the broader AI boom.THE $2 TRILLION QUESTION

Anthropic's potential valuation is at the heart of that test.

Viram Shah, Founder and CEO of Vested Finance, said the bigger issue surrounding the company's IPO is not simply the listing itself, but the price investors are willing to pay.

“Anthropic postponing its public issue should be seen as the company working through the usual IPO process. The bigger discussion is around price. In May, Anthropic was valued at a little under $1 trillion. Now people are talking about $2 trillion,” Shah said.

“That valuation assumes the company can sustain very rapid growth over the next few years,” he added.

A public listing would expose that valuation to daily buying and selling, unlike private funding rounds where valuations are established at specific fundraising events.

Shah pointed to SpaceX as an example of how quickly public markets can reassess a highly valued company.

“It listed at $135 in June, jumped above $225 within days, then dropped below $110 in August once early investors were allowed to sell. It's around $148 now. The market paid a high price on day one and then spent three months figuring out what it actually thought,” he said.

“Anyone looking at Anthropic should expect the same kind of ride,” Shah added.AI REVENUE IS NOT THE SAME AS AI ECONOMICS

The bigger challenge for Anthropic could be demonstrating that its rapid revenue growth translates into a sustainable business.

AI expert Veera Ravindra Divi, Technology Lead at a Big Five technology conglomerate, said investors need to look beyond headline revenue numbers.

“AI revenue can scale faster than AI economics,” Divi said.

“Investors see subscription or API growth, but not the cost of training, post-training, inference, failed queries, safety testing, data licensing, electricity, networking and talent,” she added.

This is particularly important for AI companies because their costs do not work in exactly the same way as those of conventional software businesses. AI models require significant computing resources not only to train, but also to generate responses for users.

Divi said investors should therefore examine whether improvements in efficiency can keep pace with falling prices and rising computing requirements.

“The key question is whether efficiency gains outpace price erosion, reliability obligations and capital intensity sustainably,” she said.WHAT PUBLIC INVESTORS WILL WATCH

If Anthropic does list, investors will have access to financial information that is less visible when the company is privately held.

Puvvula said the key question will be whether increasing scale makes the business more efficient.

“If revenue keeps rising but losses and infrastructure costs remain stubbornly high, today’s valuations may be difficult to defend, no matter how strong the overall demand for AI appears,” he said.

Divi said one of the most important metrics would be gross margin after accounting for training and inference compute.

She also highlighted inference cost per useful completed task, revenue and gross profit per GPU-hour, accelerator utilisation, committed cloud capacity versus demand and capital expenditure.

On the customer side, she said investors should look at the largest customer's share of revenue, top-ten customer concentration, retention and expansion, as well as dependence on cloud partners.

“Finally, compare free cash flow and stock-based compensation with revenue growth. Scalability means improving margins as usage rises,” Divi said.advertisementCOULD ANTHROPIC'S IPO RESET AI VALUATIONS?The implications could extend well beyond Anthropic.

If the market decides that the company's valuation does not match its financial performance, other AI companies could face greater scrutiny when they raise money.

Puvvula said a difficult IPO could make investors more selective across the sector.

“These listings would give the market its first real chance to test whether today’s AI valuations stand up outside private funding circles,” he said.

“If OpenAI or Anthropic struggles after going public, investors will probably become more selective across the sector. Companies raising capital may face lower valuations, smaller rounds, and much harder questions about revenue quality, computing costs, and profitability,” he added.

Divi said the impact could spread across the entire AI ecosystem.

“A lower valuation would reset the price of risk across the stack. Startups would face smaller rounds, milestones and more dilution; companies with weak differentiation or subsidised inference could disappear,” she said.

Infrastructure companies could also face pressure if AI companies reduce or renegotiate their computing commitments, while application companies could benefit from cheaper model access as providers compete, she added.

“The healthiest effect could be discipline: more model routing, specialised models and measurable return on investment. The danger is synchronized retrenchment that strands capacity and slows experimentation,” Divi said.advertisementSO, SHOULD ANTHROPIC HIT PAUSE?The question is not necessarily whether Anthropic should abandon its IPO. The more fundamental issue is whether the company and the wider AI industry can reconcile two competing forces: the push for faster and more powerful AI and the growing need to demonstrate that the technology can be developed safely and profitably.

For Anthropic, that tension is particularly relevant as it weighs a public listing at a valuation that could be roughly twice its May private-market valuation.

A successful listing could give public investors greater confidence that leading AI companies can grow into the expectations already built into their valuations.

But a weaker market reception could force investors to look more closely at the costs behind the AI boom — from computing and energy to infrastructure and capital requirements.

As Puvvula put it, rapid growth alone may not be enough.

“Growth becomes less persuasive when margins stay weak, infrastructure spending keeps climbing, and the company repeatedly returns for more capital. At that point, the valuation needs support from something more concrete: improving unit economics, loyal customers, pricing power, and a believable timetable for reaching positive cash flow.”

(Disclaimer: The views, opinions, recommendations, and suggestions expressed by experts/brokerages in this article are their own and do not reflect the views of the India Today Group. It is advisable to consult a qualified broker or financial advisor before making any actual investment or trading choices.)- EndsPublished By: Sonu VivekPublished On: Sep 16, 2026 17:43 IST