Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company‘s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. I’m Mark Sullivan, a senior writer at Fast Company, covering emerging tech, AI, and tech policy.
Anthropic and OpenAI will be the first two pure-play AI companies to tap the public markets through an initial public offering. Anthropic will likely list its stock (ticker symbol: “ANT”) first, potentially on November 19, while analysts expect OpenAI, which filed its own IPO paperwork confidentially in June, to wait until early next year.
The timing of these IPOs matters a lot because both companies operate in an extremely expensive business, and they’re competing for capital from the same pool of retail and institutional investors. Both are trying to raise money at valuations well above a trillion dollars amid growing concerns about rising interest rates, volatility in technology stocks, heightened scrutiny of AI company valuations, and a decidedly negative political environment.
Still, no artificial intelligence bubble has popped—yet—so Anthropic and OpenAI may want to go public while conditions are (relatively) good. Harrison Rolfes, an analyst at PitchBook, says it may also be a question of necessity. Both companies remain focused on buying, leasing, or building as much computing capacity as they can, even decades into the future. For a long time, they’ve relied on venture capital money and debt to cover those costs, but as private capital becomes harder to come by, they need to tap the public markets.
That may be a more urgent issue for Anthropic than for OpenAI.
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