In an early validation of the use of generative AI in the business world, Anthropic, an artificial intelligence developer, is generating approximately $3 billion in annualized revenue, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The sources stated that the milestone—projecting the company’s current sales over a year—represents a substantial increase from December 2024, when the metric was nearly $1 billion.
One of the sources reported that the figure exceeded $2 billion by the end of March and reached $3 billion by the end of May.
Enterprise AI Adoption Remains Cautious Despite Board-Level Interest
Despite significant board-level interest in AI, many enterprises have limited their deployments to experimental stages, even as consumers rapidly adopted rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
One of the sources noted that Anthropic’s revenue increase, largely driven by offering AI models as a service to other companies, reflects growing demand for AI-powered business solutions.
Code generation is a critical factor in Anthropic’s rise. The San Francisco-based startup, backed by Amazon and Alphabet (Google’s parent company), is known for its AI models that are particularly effective at computer programming.
In recent months, the “codegen” space has experienced notable growth, with increased adoption of tools, many powered by Anthropic’s models.
Anthropic Emerges as a Unique SaaS Growth Story
This strong demand is setting Anthropic apart from traditional software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendors. Based on its rapid quarterly revenue growth, one venture capitalist suggested that Anthropic could be the fastest-growing SaaS company they’ve ever seen.
Meritech General Partner Alex Clayton, who is not an investor in Anthropic and has no inside knowledge of its sales, remarked:
“We have examined the IPOs of over 200 public software companies, and this growth rate has never occurred.”
However, he cautioned that such comparisons may not be completely accurate, since Anthropic also earns consumer revenue through subscriptions to its Claude chatbot.
Clayton pointed out that it took six quarters for Snowflake—a publicly traded SaaS firm—to grow its run-rate revenue from $1 billion to $2 billion.
OpenAI Forecasts $12 Billion in 2025 Revenue
Three individuals familiar with the matter stated that OpenAI, a competitor to Anthropic, is projected to close out 2025 with more than $12 billion in total revenue—a sharp rise from $3.7 billion in 2024.
This total revenue figure differs from Anthropic’s annualized estimate. Reuters was unable to confirm OpenAI’s annualized revenue figure.
It appears the two companies are charting different paths. OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told Bloomberg last year that the company is shifting toward a consumer-focused model, with most revenue now coming from ChatGPT subscriptions. Both companies, however, continue to offer enterprise and consumer AI products.
In May, OpenAI announced that the number of paying seats for its ChatGPT Enterprise product had grown from 2 million in February to 3 million.
The company named T-Mobile and Morgan Stanley as enterprise clients but did not disclose revenue figures specific to enterprise sales.
Consumer Traffic Shows ChatGPT’s Lead Over Claude
OpenAI has seen greater consumer traction compared to Anthropic’s Claude. According to web analytics firm Similarweb, Claude’s traffic accounted for just about 2% of ChatGPT’s traffic in April, serving as a rough indicator of consumer interest.
Founded in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI employees who departed over differences in vision, Anthropic recently completed a $3.5 billion fundraising round. That round valued the company at $61.4 billion.
In contrast, OpenAI is currently valued at $300 billion.
