In documents shared with prospective investors, Anthropic reported generating more than $11.5 billion in revenue in the second quarter, with positive adjusted operating income. According to the documents seen by Bloomberg, the figure for the same quarter a year earlier was $787 million.

The scale of the growth

The gap is roughly 14-fold. Growth on that scale is not something seen in a mature software company; comparable examples exist only in periods when a new category opens up.

The quarterly trajectory points the same way: first-quarter revenue was $4.73 billion and the second exceeded $11.5 billion. The growth is therefore not an artefact of the year-on-year comparison; it continues within three months as well.

The profitability side

The most striking phrase in the documents is not the revenue figure but the positive adjusted operating income. The vast majority of AI companies lose money on compute costs, and that loss was assumed to deepen with growth.

The word "adjusted" matters here: unless it is stated which items are excluded, the figure is not the same as accounting profit. It still indicates a direction.

The 2028 projection

According to Reuters, citing sources, the company is presenting investors with a revenue projection of $190-200 billion for 2028 ahead of a public listing. The reference point is a $47 billion annual run rate in May.

It is worth noting that this projection assumes roughly quadrupling in three years. Pre-IPO projections sit on the optimistic side by definition; what matters more than the number is how seriously investors take it.

Why it matters

These figures supply data to the most argued-over question in the AI market: is the capital being spent coming back?

  • The answer so far — at least at two major providers, revenue is growing at a rate close to that of infrastructure investment.
  • What remains open — how much of that growth comes from durable contracts and how much from one-off enterprise trials.

The answer to the second will show up in renewal rates over the next few quarters.

The IPO context

These figures being shared at this moment is not incidental. Anthropic is preparing for what could be one of the largest public listings on record, and documents like these are deliberately placed in front of the banks doing the pricing and the institutional investors.

That does not mean the numbers are wrong — giving investors false figures carries severe legal consequences. But it shapes which figures are chosen and how they are presented. Phrases such as "adjusted operating income" deserve careful reading for exactly that reason.

The competitive angle

One comparison point is worth adding: Anthropic has long positioned itself around the enterprise market, staying less visible than its rivals on the consumer side. These revenue figures show the return on that choice — enterprise contracts are larger and more predictable than consumer subscriptions.

The same choice carries a fragility: enterprise revenue rests on fewer customers. A handful of large contracts not renewing can produce a shock that would be invisible in a base built from millions of individual subscribers.