Anthropic faces AI spending backlash before IPO
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Anthropic filed paperwork to go public just as corporate America is entering its AI sticker shock phase.
Why it matters: Companies are Anthropic's biggest customers. If they dial down their AI spend, that could weaken the AI lab's revenue just as the it prepares to IPO.
Driving the news: Hours after Anthropic filed its pre-IPO paperwork, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told CNBC that corporate concern over AI costs is "the most fair criticism of AI so far."
- Bain published a survey of nearly 1,000 companies showing that after investing in AI, "the value didn't arrive," with 40% of surveyed companies reporting AI cost savings below 10%.
- An early Anthropic investor tells Axios that companies are waking up to how much they're spending on Claude, Anthropic's AI model. That's a risk worth monitoring, the investor said.
- This comes after an AI consultant told Axios a CFO client accidentally spent half a billion dollars on Claude in a single month.
Between the lines: Even AI executives are acknowledging their technology has a cost problem.
- "The risk of enterprises switching to cheaper models is existential and, frankly, escalating," Matt Rogers, co-founder and CEO of Mill, who also worked on the original iPhone, told Axios via email.
- "Some open source LLMs [large language models] are as good without the price tag," he added.
Threat level: Corporate pushback on AI spend would be a challenge for every AI lab, but Anthropic could feel it more given its exposure to enterprise customers.
- In April, Anthropic surpassed OpenAI in business customers for the first time, per Ramp data.
- Business revenue has been Anthropic's greatest strength, given these customers pay more than everyday people.
- It could become Anthropic's Achilles heel if businesses start to rebel against AI costs.
Reality check: Anthropic is on track for nearly $50 billion in annual revenue per its latest funding round, and its first profitable quarter ever according to the Wall Street Journal.
- Anthropic keeps beating its own growth metrics, while competitor OpenAI is reportedly missing internal revenue targets.
- It's also the fastest-growing company in modern American history.
- But the AI race is far from over: "You can't make a three- or five-year bet in this space ... someone can jump over everybody else by coming up with the next great thing," Michael Levine, CFO of Fireblocks, told Axios.
The bottom line: AI labs are looking to go public right as their biggest customers are figuring out how to define their relationship with AI.
