Sources: Anthropic told investors it will be profitable for a second straight quarter, with 80%+ gross margins before partner revenue sharing and training costs

Claude maker seeks to ease cash burn concerns before blockbuster IPO amid fears over pace of AI development

Financial Times 2026-09-14

Context & Ripple Effects

Anthropic’s May investor disclosures projected its first operating-profit quarter alongside $10.9B in Q2 revenue, following a sharp step-up from Q1. The reported second profitable quarter would turn that first-profit projection into a more durable part of its investor narrative.

The company’s financing arc has moved toward a public-market test: executives had discussed an IPO as early as Q4, and August coverage described investor outreach for a potentially record IPO. Against that backdrop, the FT’s reported profitability figures address the cash-burn question while making the definition of margin more important.

First-order effects

For prospective IPO investors, a reported second consecutive profitable quarter shifts the immediate question from whether Anthropic can reach profitability to how repeatable that result is.
The stated 80%+ gross-margin measure excludes partner revenue sharing and training costs, requiring investors to distinguish service-delivery margin from the economics of building and distributing models.

Second-order effects

Bankers pursuing Anthropic’s IPO business gain a clearer profitability datapoint for marketing the offering, but will face closer scrutiny of the costs omitted from the reported gross-margin figure.
Anthropic’s valuation case becomes more dependent on credible disclosure around partner payments, training expense, and cash use rather than revenue growth alone.

Third-order effects

If frontier AI labs can show recurring operating profits while separating inference margins from training costs, public-market financing will reward cost-accounting transparency as much as model demand.
The pattern points toward a capital-market divide between AI labs that can demonstrate repeatable commercialization economics and those reliant on continued external funding.

The trend: Frontier AI is entering a public-capital phase in which recurring profitability claims and the treatment of compute costs increasingly determine investor confidence.

Discussion

@rynorhn Ryan Orhan on x
the “ai has no real business model” argument is aging remarkably fast. anthropic is already reporting gross margins above 80% and expects two consecutive profitable quarters. and we're still ridiculously early in the adoption curve.
@stocksavvyshay Shay Boloor on x
Anthropic is starting to show that AI scale can translate into real operating leverage as it reportedly heads toward a second straight profitable quarter. That comes as ARR hit $65B by July and gross margins topped 80% before partner revenue share and training costs.
@benitoz @benitoz on x
And that's why Dario didn't sign the open models letter with everyone else Bro wants to keep his margins up and reg capture
@rohanpaul_ai Rohan Paul on x
FT just reported Anthropic expects a second straight quarter of adjusted operating profit before its planned IPO. Anthropic had already posted positive adjusted operating income in Q2 after revenue topped $11.5B, which is 14X the previoius quarter of last year. ARR reached $65B b…
@thulynnn @thulynnn on x
Innovating accounting right there! Gross margin before counting cost
@jukan05 Jukan on x
“Anthropic's gross margins are above 80% before accounting for revenue shared with distribution partners, including Amazon, and the cost of training its models.” Wow.
@bubbleboi Bubble Boi on x
Makes sense and inline with my estimate. If you just looked at the roofline of a DGX system and used their token cost as an input you got this number roughly correct nothing fancy to it. Deepseek I calculated having north of 90% and that's with their api costs too which is crazy.…
@mfinkle Mark Finkle on bluesky
Anthropic boasts of being “profitable” by using a definition that ignores the billions spent on model training. — The push to slow down the pace of AI helps their balance sheet. If they tap the brakes, the short shelf-life of current models extends, allowing them to cash in on…
r/singularity r on reddit
Anthropic tells investors it will be profitable for second straight quarter
@sungkim Sung Kim on bluesky
It seems Anthropic really wants its IPO to succeed. — If it slows the pace of AI development, the financial story becomes much cleaner: inference reportedly carries roughly an 80% gross margin, and the company has posted two consecutive quarters of operating profit. — www.ft.…
@emollick Ethan Mollick on bluesky
There seems to be a persistent belief that frontier AI companies are unprofitable serving models but it appears that Anthropic has 80%+ gross margins on inference. Training for new models are where most of the costs are. www.ft.com/content/4564... [image]
@edzitron Ed Zitron on x
Slowdown going well I see
@bullish1312 Flavian on x
@DeItaone Should be interesting to see how they “pace the frontier” while investors need to see revenue growth and new models
@ross__hendricks Ross Hendricks on x
Good to see the Anthropic IPO moving right along, not letting that whole “civilizational collapse” risk get in the way of dumping them bags
@katie_roof Katie Roof on x
Scoop: Anthropic has chosen to list its IPO on the Nasdaq, following SpaceX. NYSE historically got the biggest IPOs, but Nasdaq has been winning on tech, partly due to Nasdaq 100 index. https://www.businessinsider.com/ ...
r/MU_Stock r on reddit
Anthropic has chosen the Nasdaq for its IPO listing. (Everything their CEO said is a marketing SCAM to pump their IPO and pretend their tech can end humanity in 6 months).
@fack @fack on bluesky
You're free to boycott anthropic at any point. [embedded post]
@bruxa.online @bruxa.online on bluesky
lol anthropic's nice guy aura is at some point gonna have to come to terms with all the companies they are signing deals with! [embedded post]
r/technology r on reddit
Anthropic tells investors it will be profitable for second straight quarter
@andreworlowski Andrew Orlowski on x
OpenAI and Anthropic are trying to sell us Perrier water at £1,000 a bottle in a world that has just acquired ubiquitous and clean tap water. They may sell a few bottles, but that world has gone, I think. Their investors need to carry the hit. Me in today's paper. Gift link in og…
@burnerdontask Burner on x
Our margins are great once you remove capex and opex
@fearthe_void Gladio Langford on x
Whatever accountant made this possible didn't get paid enough
@hrkrshnn Hari on x
I know many people here that think AI is a bubble that will imminently pop, fueled by investors burning cash. Anthropic's margins are over 80%; for every $100 you spend, Anthropic gets to keep $80+. Incredible execution by Anthropic!
@weakinstrument Ryan Cummings on x
“Before accounting for revenue shared with distribution partners and the cost of training its models” lmao.
@whhatisachoice @whhatisachoice on x
my gross margins are 100% before accounting for revenue share with the government, landlords and grocery stores
@firstadopter Tae Kim on x
FT: “Anthropic has told its backers it will be profitable this quarter” “adjusted operating income will be positive for the second consecutive quarter .. The measure strips out costs including stock-based compensation”
@xdnibor Robin on x
“Anthropic is profitable if they don't count expenses.” What a joke
@dr_gingerballs @dr_gingerballs on x
Cool, so just release the S1 lol.
@quantian1 @quantian1 on x
Incredible spotting of “Earnings before COGS” in the wild
@realjimchanos James Chanos on x
“Cost-Adjusted EBITDA”
@suchenzang Susan Zhang on x
what cute coincidences!
@validapau Valida Pau on x
Rumble, the media company backed by Peter Thiel and JD Vance that hosts Trump's Truth Social, turned itself into a neocloud after acquiring Germany's Northern Data. A few months after it relaunched as Rum, it signed a $13.7B with an unnamed AI customer. That customer is Anthropic…
@andersonbcdefg Ben on x
concerning
@edzitron Ed Zitron on x
slowdown going great i see
@punished_karlik @punished_karlik on x
lmao
@ashleycapoot Ashley Capoot on x
New: While Anthropic meets w/ prospective investors ahead of its potentially historic market debut, CEO Dario Amodei is pushing for a slowdown in AI. It's a tough balancing act for a 5-year-old company pursuing a $2 trillion valuation. More w/ @Kr00ney: https://www.cnbc.com/...
@boringbiz_ @boringbiz_ on x
Investors watching Anthropic define profitability as revenue before cost of goods sold and operating expenses
@effmkthype @effmkthype on x
My dick is so long it touches the ground after adjusting for lying face down
@financedircfo Alastair Thomson on x
Possibly the funniest thing I've ever read. These people desperately need to speak with much better accountants. The only thing I don't know is whether it's the result of collosal naïvety, incomparable stupidity, or attempted fraud.
@dariocpx JustDario on x
Yes, If you excluded all costs Anthropic gross margins would have been 100% 👍 I wonder how much advertising the FT has been paid to publish this type of garbage and flush a good chunk of its reputation down the 🚽
@edzitron Ed Zitron on x
Definitive vibe shift on this one. A few months ago you'd have every reply saying “doomers quiet 🤣🤣” but today it's all people saying “yeah I have high gross margins if you remove my costs”
@nomad_cap @nomad_cap on x
My eBay side gig flipping pokemon cards prints 90% margins before eBay fees and cost of buying the cards.
r/BetterOffline r on reddit
Anthropic tells investors it will be profitable for second straight quarter
@danprimack Dan Primack on x
Ummmm.... it feels that those two caveats are kinda sorta important.

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