Anthropic is still growing faster than almost any company in history. It’s just not growing as fast as it was, and that matters a lot right now. The Information reports that the slowdown could weigh on the valuation Anthropic gets when it goes public, with the listing expected in the coming weeks.
The timing is awkward. Investors were pricing in the hypergrowth of the first half of the year, and the newer numbers point to a curve that’s starting to flatten.
What’s actually changing
Revenue is still going up. What’s falling is the rate. Reports from several outlets say Anthropic’s sequential growth in Q3 came in well below the more-than-doubling it posted in Q2, and that some investors had hoped for an even steeper ramp by year-end. Those figures come from company briefings to investors and haven’t been audited, so treat them as directional for now.
That gap is the issue. Growth-stage companies get valued on where they’re heading, not where they are. If you were underwriting a curve that kept getting steeper and it starts to bend, the multiple usually bends with it.
What makes this interesting is the context:
- The price tag is huge. Investors have reportedly talked about an IPO valuation around $2 trillion, roughly double Anthropic’s last private round.
- Skeptics are loud. CNBC reported that New Constructs called it the “most ridiculous IPO” of the year, arguing the fundamentals can’t support that number.
- Costs are enormous. Anthropic’s compute commitments run into the hundreds of billions, and they don’t shrink when growth slows.
Two ways to read it
The bull case: Slowing growth at this scale is just math. Going from billions to tens of billions can’t keep the same percentage gains forever. Anthropic’s position in enterprise and coding tools is still strong, and Claude Code has become one of the stickiest developer products on the market. In this view, a cooling growth rate is a normal sign of a maturing business, not a red flag.
The bear case: Public investors aren’t private ones. They’ll compare the valuation to revenue, losses and compute obligations, and they’ll ask whether frontier AI labs can ever earn margins that justify trillion-dollar prices. If the best-placed lab can’t keep its curve steep, the whole AI trade gets repriced.
I think both are partly right. The slowdown doesn’t break the business. It does break the story that the line only goes up, and IPOs run on stories.
Why it matters beyond Anthropic
This is the first real public-market test of the frontier lab model. OpenAI, xAI and others are watching closely. A strong debut validates huge private valuations across the sector. A weak one makes the next round harder for everyone.
It also shifts power toward customers. When growth gets harder to come by, labs compete harder on price, contract terms and features. That’s already visible in aggressive enterprise discounting and bundled agent tools.
Where this goes in 1 to 3 years
- Profitability starts to matter. Once Anthropic is public, quarterly earnings calls will push it toward margin discipline. Expect tighter rate limits, tiered pricing and more upselling to premium plans.
- Commoditization picks up. As growth slows across the top labs, open-weight models and cheaper competitors will take share at the low end.
- Consolidation follows. Smaller AI startups that depend on frontier-lab hype for their own funding could have a harder time raising.
What practitioners should do now
- Don’t lock into a single model vendor. Build your stack so you can swap providers without rewriting everything.
- Negotiate now. Labs racing to show growth before and after an IPO are motivated sellers. Use that for annual contracts.
- Budget for price changes. Public-company pressure usually means pricing shifts. Model your costs with some buffer.
- Watch the S-1 closely. Once the full filing is public, it’ll be the most detailed look anyone has had at frontier AI economics. Read the gross margin and compute-cost sections.
Anthropic’s IPO will set the tone for AI valuations well into 2027. Whether the market sees a maturing leader or an overpriced bet will shape how much capital flows to the rest of the industry. The full report is available at The Information.