Anthropic Leads Prospects for a Major AI IPO in 2026

Anthropic remains the leading candidate among major private artificial intelligence companies to announce an initial public offering in 2026, as OpenAI rules out a public debut this year and other anticipated listings lose momentum. Data from prediction market Kalshi put Anthropic's probability of announcing an IPO at 75% on Monday morning, reflecting investor expectations for the remaining months of the year.

Anthropic was the only company among 23 businesses with active markets on Kalshi to have a probability above 50% for an official IPO announcement in 2026. The company confidentially filed a prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission in early June, positioning it for a potential transition to public markets.

Kalshi defines an official IPO announcement through specific milestones, including the SEC declaring a company's S-1 registration statement effective, the pricing of an IPO, or a stock exchange assigning the company a ticker symbol. The platform uses reports from various news outlets to resolve its markets.

Other private companies have seen their prospects decline substantially throughout 2026. Financial technology company Plaid, which was assigned a private-market valuation of $8 billion, saw its probability of going public fall from 50% in January to 10%. Human resources and payroll platform Deel dropped from even odds in February to 3%, while cloud and artificial intelligence company Databricks fell from above 50% in January to 1%.

OpenAI, Anthropic's main rival, also has a 3% probability of going public in 2026 on Kalshi. Chief Executive Sam Altman ruled out a public listing this year, saying last month that going public did not make sense amid concerns about AI safety. The probability that OpenAI will officially announce an IPO by June 2027 stands at 50%, according to the platform.

Across the broader market, postponements have increased in recent weeks, even as total IPO proceeds have risen sharply. Renaissance Capital reported that the number of US IPOs priced in 2026 is down 33% compared with 2025, despite major listings, including SpaceX's June debut, contributing to proceeds.

Investors have anticipated public offerings from large private AI companies and businesses supplying products and infrastructure for the sector's expansion. Public markets can provide companies with access to additional capital to support development and growth, particularly as demand for AI technology increases.

However, concerns about Anthropic's revenue trajectory have added uncertainty to its potential listing. The company disclosed that revenue reached $16.8 billion in the third quarter, with quarter-over-quarter growth weaker than in previous periods.

Dauvin Peterson, an analyst at 22V Research, highlighted questions about the slowdown in Anthropic's revenue growth and the company's ability to meet market expectations amid pricing pressure on large language models. In a Sunday research note, Peterson wrote:

"More questions than answers emerged around the reasons for revenue growth deceleration in September and whether Anthropic can grow revenue at the rate the market is expecting given dynamics such as [large language model] pricing pressure," wrote 22V Research analyst Dauvin Peterson on Sunday. "At the end of the day, the revised IPO valuation range starting at $1.5T vs the prior expectation of at least $2T was viewed as disappointing and added fuel to the fire for the AI-related equities that were already under pressure."