Anthropic expects second straight quarter of profit as revenue hits $11.5bn

Anthropic has told its backers that it expects to be profitable this quarter, which would give the artificial intelligence company a second consecutive quarter of positive adjusted operating income. The company recorded an adjusted operating profit in the second quarter, according to information shared with investors.

The disclosure points to rapid revenue growth at Anthropic as it competes with OpenAI and other developers of large language models. Its revenue surged 14-fold from a year earlier to $11.5bn.

Anthropic had reached $65bn in annualised revenue by the end of July, compared with $9bn at the end of last year. Investors are forecasting that it will finish the year with $120bn in annualised revenue.

Annualised revenue is a measure that expresses a company’s revenue run rate over a full year. The figures shared with investors indicate a sharp rise in Anthropic’s commercial activity over the period described, although the company has not provided a breakdown by product line or customer segment.

The company’s reported profitability measure is adjusted operating income. It excludes costs including stock-based compensation, so it does not represent a full accounting of every expense incurred by the business.

Anthropic’s gross margins are above 80 per cent before revenue shared with distribution partners, including Amazon, and the cost of training its models. Those items are therefore outside the margin measure cited to investors.

The company has not set out the timing or methodology of its quarterly reporting in the information provided. It is also unclear whether adjusted operating profit will continue beyond the current quarter, or what other costs are excluded from the measure.

Forecasts presented to investors point to further expansion. A SemiAnalysis analyst expects Anthropic to close 2027 with almost triple the annualised revenue that investors are forecasting for the end of this year. That projection would follow the increase from $9bn in annualised revenue at the end of last year to $65bn by the end of July.