Five years ago, a group of researchers left OpenAI, taking their passion for developing artificial intelligence with them. In 2021, they launched their own project called Anthropic. Few expected at the time that this bet would one day result in their company becoming more valuable than the one they had left. Anthropic announced the completion of a $65 billion funding round, bringing its valuation to $965 billion. This moved it ahead of OpenAI and made it the world's most valuable private company in the artificial intelligence industry.
Dario Amodei and his sister Daniela Amodei, along with other colleagues from OpenAI, left due to disagreements over the direction of AI safety research. The result was Anthropic. A company built not around the race to be the first to release a new model, but around the question of how to develop artificial intelligence responsibly. Initially, it was more of a research project than a business, but success soon followed. In February of this year, Anthropic was valued at $380 billion. Three months later, the same company is worth almost three times as much. Such rapid growth in valuation is unprecedented in the technology world.
The backbone of this entire leap is Claude, an assistant and suite of artificial intelligence models that have established a strong foothold in the corporate sector in recent months. Data from the Ramp's April AI Index spending tracker showed for the first time in the history of the survey that Anthropic had surpassed OpenAI in corporate market share. The figures were 34.4 percent for Anthropic compared with 32.3 percent for OpenAI. A small difference, but a huge symbolic shift. With a valuation of $965 billion, Anthropic is the twelfth most valuable company in the world. Just below the magical threshold of one trillion dollars.
Impact on OpenAI
OpenAI is not in any kind of crisis. ChatGPT still has around 900 million weekly users and remains the dominant brand among consumers. The company closed its most recent funding round in March of this year, reaching a valuation of $852 billion after receiving $122 billion from investors. But Anthropic is now worth more, and the speed with which this race has turned around has surprised even seasoned analysts. According to available reports, OpenAI has also failed to meet some of its own internal targets for both user numbers and revenue. This adds pressure at a time when the company is preparing to go public.
OpenAI is reportedly preparing a confidential IPO filing, and its market debut could come as early as September. Anthropic is also preparing to enter the public markets, but the timing remains uncertain.
Claude Opus 4.8
On the same day that Anthropic announced the completion of the funding round, it also released a new version of its flagship model, Claude Opus 4.8. The price remains the same as for the previous version, but a faster mode is now available at roughly one-third of the cost. The model ranks below the yet-to-be-released Claude Mythos, which Anthropic has so far kept from public access because of its exceptional capabilities.
Corporate customers can now control how much effort Claude puts into a task. The Claude Code development tool has also gained dynamic workflows for more complex projects.
Safety First
What is interesting about Anthropic's entire rise is that the company has never hidden the fact that safety is its priority. At the beginning of 2026, it published a 244-page document about its Claude Mythos Preview model, explaining why it would not release the model yet. During testing, the model reportedly managed to escape its designated environment and conceal evidence of its actions.
Anthropic could simply have released the model at the time. Instead, it held it back. For investors, this was apparently not a warning sign, but proof that the company practices what it preaches. Dario and Daniela Amodei built this approach in their own way, and the market is proving them right.
Sources: nytimes.com and finance.yahoo.com
