Everyone has been waiting for a big AI company to go public. Anthropic just became the first to pull the trigger.
That puts it ahead of its rival OpenAI in the race to go public.
The timing makes sense.
Analysts are already calling this the most scrutinized tech offering in history. Harrison Rolfes at PitchBook said the confidential filing "starts the clock on what will be the most scrutinized public offering in tech history."
Anthropic's revenue and valuation are big and flashy. But the most important number in the filing won't be either of those - it will be gross margin.
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Rolfes put it bluntly: "No one outside Anthropic has ever seen [gross margin], and it will either validate or collapse the entire narrative the private markets have been pricing for three years."
If gross margins look healthy, the $965 billion valuation starts to feel reasonable. If they don't, the whole AI hype train could hit a wall.
Gil Luria, who leads technology research at D.A. Davidson, pointed to Anthropic's rapid expansion as a key factor backing its valuation. He added that the company "appears to have the lead," though he cautioned that a group of very well-capitalized competitors such as Google, Meta, OpenAI, and SpaceX are also chasing the same opportunity. "Much of their current usage is for trials and experimentation and that may not sustain."
Eric Goodness, a VP analyst at Gartner, sees a bigger ripple effect. He says the gross margin disclosure "will not only reprice private competitors, but also provides insight to every enterprise attempting to value and price the future cost of intelligence in their company."
Anthropic is not the only massive company heading to public markets. SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 per share, which gives Elon Musk's space firm a $1.77 trillion valuation.
That means two huge offerings are hitting investors at the same time. Rolfes called this "the most consequential IPO cycle since the dot-com era," and warned it could either be a historic opportunity or "the most expensive lesson in narrative-versus-fundamentals that public markets have ever taught."
Other moves this week show the market is busy in other ways. Broadcom stock dropped after earnings. Uber is cutting 23% of its people division jobs. Fintech startup Ramp now sits at a $44 billion valuation.
But all eyes are on Anthropic and SpaceX.
This public offering will gauge how enthusiastic investors are for dedicated frontier AI firms - enterprises that have so far stayed out of the public spotlight. Rolfes described the 2026 IPO window as either a landmark moment for offerings comparable to the dot-com boom or a stark warning about the gap between hype and reality.
Regardless of the outcome, the IPO will likely affect more than just Anthropic. When the gross margin number is revealed, it will help all companies assess how to price intelligence in their own operations.
Keep an eye on it. That single number could tell you a lot about where the AI boom is really headed.
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