Before the IPO: What the AI Money Flood Means for Your Vendor Choice

On June 8, 2026, OpenAI confidentially filed an initial draft of the so-called S-1 form with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) – the official first step on the road to an IPO. Just a week earlier, on June 1, 2026, Anthropic had taken the same step, only days after closing a $65 billion funding round at a $965 billion valuation. Two companies whose models are likely already in use in your business – for customer service, quoting, or software development – are simultaneously preparing for one of the largest IPOs in tech history. For you as a decision-maker, this is not a footnote in the business pages. It's a signal that the rules of your vendor choice are changing right now – in part already, months before the actual listing.

Bloomberg puts the total volume of the current AI IPO pipeline, which besides OpenAI and Anthropic includes other vendors, at roughly $3.6 trillion. A figure of that magnitude doesn't just move investors. It creates pressure – on growth, on margin, on the question of how to present a business model so it holds up on the stock market. And that pressure doesn't only reach you on listing day. It's reaching you already, in the form of price increases, changed contract models, and – as an incident in June 2026 showed – in the worst case, cut-off access.

It's worth taking a brief look at the process itself: A confidential S-1 filing lets a company submit its financials to the SEC for review privately at first, before the actual prospectus is published weeks ahead of the IPO. It's a clear signal of intent, but explicitly not a commitment to actually complete the IPO within a specific timeframe. Companies can pause, delay, or – strictly speaking – abandon the process entirely. For you as a customer, that means: the much-cited September 2026 target date is a window, not a fixed point. What is no longer reversible, however, are the operational decisions both companies have already made in the run-up – from pricing adjustments to changed contract models. Those decisions affect you today, regardless of whether the listing happens in September, in November, or not until 2027.

You don't need to be a finance expert for this. It's enough to keep three questions in mind as you watch the coming months: How is investor pressure changing the prices you pay today? How is it changing the contracts you sign today? And how well is your company positioned if access to a single vendor changes on short notice? All three questions can already be answered with concrete data – without having to wait for the actual IPO.

Two Trillion-Dollar Bets, One Tight Window

The numbers behind the two IPO candidates are impressive and, at the same time, hard to compare directly. OpenAI's most recently confirmed private valuation stands at $852 billion, set in March 2026 as part of a $122 billion funding round. For the actual IPO, media reports suggest the valuation could rise to one trillion dollars or beyond. Sam Altman reportedly called a valuation below that mark a "nonstarter" internally – a sign of how ambitious internal expectations are. Important for context: $852 billion and over one trillion dollars are not contradictory figures, but two different reference points – the last confirmed private valuation on one side, the public IPO target scenario on the other.

Anthropic, meanwhile, has overtaken OpenAI in private valuation for the first time: $965 billion following the Series H round in late May 2026. That valuation is backed by revenue growth that stands out even in an industry defined by superlatives: Anthropic's annualized revenue rate rose from around $1 billion in early 2025 to about $47 billion by the end of May 2026 – a roughly 47-fold increase within 17 months, driven substantially by Claude Code. For context: an annualized revenue rate is a snapshot extrapolated from a shorter billing period, not an audited annual revenue figure under GAAP accounting. It shows momentum, but doesn't replace an annual report.

OpenAI, with an annualized revenue of around $20 billion at the end of 2025, comes in at a significantly lower figure – while facing a higher expected loss: for 2026, the company itself projects a loss of around $14 billion. Profitability, according to internal estimates, isn't expected until 2029 or 2030. Anthropic states it was profitable for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2025, and is targeting sustained profitability by 2029 – a year ahead of OpenAI. This difference is more than a footnote: it influences how strongly investor pressure acts on each of the two vendors, and in which direction it plays out.

It's also notable how tight the timeline is for both companies. The processes are being advised by, among others, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley – two firms leaving no doubt that they're pushing for a quick, high-profile close. Reuters also reported on the possibility of a delay into 2027, but even that scenario doesn't change the basic mechanics: a company aiming for a valuation beyond the trillion-dollar mark has to shape its numbers now to support that ambition. That means the real preparation pressure begins long before the first day of trading – and that's exactly the preparation phase OpenAI and Anthropic are in right now.

Under SEC rules, a final prospectus would need to be in place by mid-August 2026 at the latest to keep a September IPO realistic. This tight timing also explains why both companies are already adjusting their commercial terms now, rather than after listing: anyone who wants to show investors a convincing growth and margin profile in the prospectus has to deliver the corresponding numbers in the quarters before it.

What's Already Changing – Not Just After the IPO

The obvious objection is: a fall IPO only affects you as a mid-market company once it actually happens. The facts say otherwise. Both companies have already noticeably changed their pricing and contract models in the run-up – not as an announcement for the future, but as a decision already made, with direct impact on current budgets.

OpenAI doubled its flagship model's API prices in May 2026 and discontinued the fine-tuning API. According to data from market observer SpendHound, enterprise prices across the OpenAI ecosystem rose by an average of 26.8 percent year over year. Anthropic took a different but equally significant path in April 2026: enterprise customers were moved from flat-rate pricing to a usage-based billing model – a base fee of $20 per seat per month, plus actual API usage. At the same time, flat-rate plans for third-party agent frameworks were restricted. Anyone who had planned their budget based on the old terms had to readjust.

These moves shouldn't be viewed in isolation. They're part of a recognizable logic: ahead of an IPO, the need grows to translate growth and margin into a convincing story for investors. Price increases, cutting low-margin offerings, and prioritizing high-paying enterprise segments are among the most obvious levers for that. For you as a mid-market company, this means concretely: the terms you're planning around today are not the last word. It's worth reviewing contract terms, price-lock clauses, and cancellation periods closely now – before the next adjustment comes.

A real-world example illustrates the scale: A ChatGPT Enterprise plan with the usual minimum of 150 licenses runs at around $60 per user per month – that's about $108,000 in entry-level annual costs. If that amount rises another 20 to 25 percent at the next renewal cycle, as last year's enterprise pricing trend suggests, it will noticeably shift a mid-market company's IT budget – often without the corresponding reserve having been planned into the annual budget. Anyone who knows their renewal dates and negotiates in time holds a much stronger hand than someone who only notices the automatic contract renewal when the new invoice arrives.

OpenAI and Anthropic Are Betting Differently

The two vendors differ not just in revenue and profitability targets, but also in the strategic direction that follows from investor pressure. Anthropic's business model is heavily geared toward enterprise and coding use – Claude Code as a growth driver points to a higher-margin, more predictable profile that tells a good story to investors who value reliable recurring revenue. OpenAI, by contrast, is positioned much more toward consumers, with a larger but also more cost-intensive user base and a higher near-term loss risk.

A thought you often hear in management meetings these days goes roughly like this: "If both vendors are going public anyway, it barely changes my contract situation – as long as the model works." That very fallacy is the core of the problem: it's not the IPO itself that changes your position, but the road to it – and that road is already well underway for both vendors.

For your vendor choice, this difference means something very concrete: a vendor with a strong enterprise focus will tend to try to lock in large customers and select more aggressively on price or feature scope for smaller ones. A consumer-heavy vendor under high loss pressure will tend to work on broad monetization – including price increases in the mid-tier segment, where many mid-market users are located. Both paths can have relevant, but different, consequences for you. Anyone who looks only at model quality and ignores the business-model logic behind it is planning on an incomplete basis.

The Export-Control Incident as a Wake-Up Call for Vendor Lock-In

How quickly access and pricing at a single vendor can change was demonstrated on June 12, 2026: according to reports, the US government cut off access to certain Anthropic models for certain user groups via export controls. Companies without a fallback option ground to a halt from one moment to the next. This incident doesn't generalize to every situation, but it exemplifies a risk that's often underestimated in everyday practice: access to an AI vendor is not a fixed constant, but can change on short notice due to regulatory, geopolitical, or corporate decisions – regardless of how satisfied you've been with the product so far.

A study by Red Hat on German companies paints a sobering picture of preparedness for exactly such scenarios: only 57 percent of surveyed companies have an exit strategy in place for the case that their primary AI vendor restricts access. 37 percent expect serious consequences for business continuity in the event of a forced short-term switch. And 94 percent of surveyed IT decision-makers voice fundamental concerns about vendor lock-in risk – a figure that shows the problem is widely recognized, but rarely addressed consistently.

This gap between problem awareness and actual preparedness is the real core of the challenge you now face. It's not enough to know the risk. What matters is whether your company can act within days rather than months in an emergency.

Applied to the pre-IPO situation, this means: the closer OpenAI and Anthropic get to their respective IPO dates, the greater the incentive to steer their business in ways that look good in the short term – even if that becomes uncomfortable for individual customer groups. A vendor a few months from listing weighs decisions differently than one that still has years to nurture customer relationships for the long term. That's not a criticism of either company, but a structural observation you should factor into your own risk assessment – regardless of how convinced you are of the quality of their respective models.

What This Means for Your Vendor Choice – A Checklist

From the developments described, concrete, actionable steps can be derived that make sense now, regardless of the actual IPO date:

1. Review contract terms and price locks. Clarify for what period your current terms are fixed and which clauses allow unilateral price adjustments. After the price increases at both vendors in spring 2026, this is no longer a theoretical exercise.

2. A multi-model architecture instead of single-vendor dependence. Check whether central workflows can be structured technically so that switching vendors doesn't require a fundamental redevelopment. This applies especially to prompt structures, integrations, and data formats.

3. Develop a documented exit strategy. Given that, according to Red Hat data, only 57 percent of companies here have such a strategy, this is a point where you can set yourself apart from the majority with manageable effort. Anyone who defines in advance how a switch would work technically and organizationally doesn't lose weeks to fundamental questions in an emergency.

4. Build a price buffer into your budget planning. The documented price increases of over 26 percent year over year in some cases should be factored into your 2026 and 2027 budget planning with a realistic reserve, rather than assuming current terms are permanent.

5. Use IPO progress as a leading indicator, not an end date. Watch for when the public prospectus is actually published – that step delivers far more reliable signals about business figures and strategic direction than the current, sometimes contradictory, media reports about the timing of the listing.

Conclusion: The IPO Is the Endpoint, Not the Starting Gun

If OpenAI and Anthropic actually go public in fall 2026, headlines about valuations beyond the trillion-dollar mark will follow. But for your vendor choice, that day isn't the decisive moment – the decisive course is already being set now, in the form of price adjustments, changed contract models, and the question of how well your company is prepared for sudden access changes. The uncertainty around the exact timing – September, November, or not until 2027 – shouldn't lull you into a false sense of security. The operational changes that actually matter to you are already well underway.

Anyone who builds a resilient vendor strategy now – with reviewed contracts, a realistic budget reserve, and a documented plan B – won't face a surprise on listing day, but a question they've already answered.