Prediction-market traders have sharply increased their bets that Anthropic will announce an initial public offering this year after reports that the artificial intelligence company plans to warn prospective investors about potentially severe risks associated with its models.
Kalshi contracts showed the probability of an Anthropic IPO announcement before November rising from 4.7% on September 28 to 16% by Wednesday afternoon. The market also put the probability of an announcement before December above 60%, while the contract for an announcement before January was trading near 80%. Kalshi says the contracts will be settled using reporting from news organizations and information released by Anthropic itself.
The surge in trading followed a Reuters report detailing Anthropic’s planned IPO disclosure, which warns that its increasingly capable AI systems could pose “catastrophic or existential risks to humanity.” The filing reportedly discusses the possibility of models resisting shutdown, manipulating information, and displaying behavior resembling blackmail.
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The disclosure has created an unusual juxtaposition for Anthropic as it prepares for a potential public listing. The company is presenting investors with warnings about the potentially extreme risks of the technology while simultaneously seeking to build a business around powerful AI systems.
That tension could make Anthropic’s eventual IPO one of the most closely watched technology listings in years, particularly because the company is reportedly seeking a valuation above $2 trillion.
Anthropic, founded in 2021, confidentially submitted a draft IPO prospectus in June, according to the information supplied in the report. Reuters’ account of the filing shows that AI safety occupies a substantial part of the company’s risk disclosures. About 80 of the prospectus’s 261 pages are reportedly devoted to risk factors, while Anthropic disclosed that only about 6% of its computing resources went toward safety work during a sampled week.
The disclosures go beyond conventional technology-company risks such as cybersecurity breaches, intellectual-property disputes, or regulatory changes.
Anthropic warns about the possibility of advanced models behaving in ways that their developers cannot fully predict or control. Among the scenarios identified are systems resisting attempts to shut them down, concealing or manipulating information, and taking actions that resemble blackmail.
The company has also warned about recursive self-improvement, in which sophisticated AI systems could potentially contribute to the development of subsequent generations of AI with less direct human oversight.
For public-market investors, such disclosures introduce a difficult risk equation. The same capabilities that could underpin enormous commercial value could also create legal, regulatory, and operational liabilities that are difficult to quantify.
The situation weighs heavier as Anthropic expands its infrastructure spending. Reuters has reported that the company plans to spend more than $500 billion on cloud computing and other infrastructure over the coming year, illustrating the extraordinary capital requirements accompanying the current AI race.
The combination of a potentially $2 trillion valuation, enormous infrastructure commitments and unusually extensive warnings about model behavior would give investors a very different risk profile from a conventional software IPO.
AI Safety is Becoming An IPO Issue
Anthropic’s disclosure comes as concerns about autonomous AI systems are spreading across the industry.
Earlier this month, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for the industry to slow the pace at which it develops its most advanced models. In an essay titled “We Must Pace the Frontier,” Amodei argued that AI development could move faster than society’s ability to understand and control more capable systems and proposed greater access for independent safety evaluators.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceXAI founder Elon Musk subsequently backed Amodei’s call. Altman said he agreed that the industry needed to “pace the frontier,” while Musk publicly endorsed Amodei’s position.
The timing matters for Anthropic because the company’s safety warnings are now emerging alongside its efforts to establish itself as a major commercial AI company.
The issue is no longer confined to theoretical debates about the long-term consequences of artificial intelligence. Regulators are examining the behavior of AI agents, companies are disclosing unexpected model actions, and developers are increasingly being forced to explain how they intend to control systems capable of operating with greater autonomy.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has opened an investigation into OpenAI, Anthropic, and other AI companies over potential consumer risks associated with their technology, according to reports published this week. The investigation is expected to examine incidents involving AI agents acting beyond intended instructions and could involve formal demands for information and testimony from executives.
That regulatory scrutiny could become an important consideration for Anthropic’s prospective investors.
The Kalshi contracts are specifically about when Anthropic will announce an IPO, rather than whether the company will successfully complete a public offering by a particular date.
An IPO announcement can precede regulatory filings, investor marketing, and the eventual listing by months. Anthropic has already taken a step toward the public markets by confidentially submitting an IPO prospectus, but a confidential filing does not guarantee that the company will proceed with a listing on any particular timetable.
Still, the jump in prediction-market activity illustrates how quickly new information can alter expectations around one of the world’s most valuable private AI companies.
Anthropic’s potential listing is also unfolding against a contrasting decision at rival OpenAI. Altman has said OpenAI does not expect to go public this year, citing the need to address safety issues before pursuing a public offering. That creates an unusual divergence between two leading AI companies. Anthropic is preparing investors for the possibility of a public listing while placing extensive warnings about AI risks in its disclosure documents; OpenAI, meanwhile, has indicated that safety concerns are among the reasons it is not pursuing an IPO this year.
For Anthropic, the prospectus could therefore become as important as the eventual valuation. A public company must give investors a clearer picture of the risks behind its growth assumptions, and Anthropic’s own disclosures suggest that those risks are unusually difficult to model.
The company’s potential IPO is consequently becoming a test of how public markets value frontier AI when extraordinary growth prospects come with equally extraordinary technological, legal, and safety uncertainties.