What a Delayed OpenAI IPO Would Tell Investors

For most of 2026, investors have been wondering which frontier AI lab is worth more: Anthropic or OpenAI? Since late June, the debate has changed: Which company will go public first? That will let the market set the terms on how these huge companies are valued. Now, OpenAI executives appear to be hesitating, signaling intent to wait until 2027 for its initial public offering.

The companies filed confidential draft IPO documents in June 2026. Reports suggest that both are aiming for a stock market valuation north of $1 trillion. According to PitchBook data for the most recent funding rounds, Anthropic was just a stone’s throw away at $965 billion in late May, and OpenAI at $852 billion as of the end of March.

Business Quality: OpenAI vs Anthropic

Reports that OpenAI would rather wait until 2027 than list below a trillion dollars is, in effect, an opinion on the company’s valuation from the people closest to the views of outside investors. A company confident that its book cleared a trillion would take money. Choosing to wait suggests the clearing value sits below the target.

That would confirm a gap PitchBook has tracked all year. PitchBook’s AI business quality (AIBQ) framework is a 10-point scoring system for evaluating these companies. It takes into account how efficiently a frontier lab turns money into revenue, as well as how durable that revenue looks. OpenAI scores 4.53; Anthropic 8.20.

Dividing each valuation by its score reveals that OpenAI looks more costly than Anthropic: OpenAI costs $188 billion per point of business quality, Anthropic $118 billion. That’s roughly a 60% premium for the weaker business. For a year, that was our conclusion, not the market’s. OpenAI declining to test its own price is the first sign the market agrees.

To be sure, the confirmed facts are narrow. OpenAI filed confidentially on June 8 and set no IPO date. The trillion-dollar floor and the 2027 lean come from headlines and unnamed-source accounts, meaning a 2027 IPO is still up for debate, since the wait also carries a cost. OpenAI’s projections show the company plans to keep burning cash until 2030, pushing another year of funding onto private balance sheets at an $852 billion mark.

Should OpenAI delay its IPO to 2027, Anthropic would likely go public first. Anthropic filed on June 1, reportedly tracking toward an October offering, so it will likely be the first pure-play frontier lab to trade publicly. It will arrive with something OpenAI cannot show: a profitable quarter. (Though Anthropic reportedly is warning that it may not repeat those numbers anytime soon.) Its first weeks of trading will be the closest thing to a verdict on valuations for the category.

A Key AI Lab Accounting Metric

One accounting question shapes all this. OpenAI is valued at about 34 times its sales rate, Anthropic at 20 times, but they count sales differently. Anthropic includes revenue flowing through its cloud partners, while OpenAI counts only its share. Anthropic’s figure would have to be roughly 40% too high for that gap to close. Its prospectus, public weeks before an October listing, will settle it.

A trillion is reachable on OpenAI’s own plan, but not yet provable on its own disclosures, which is likely why the filing stays confidential. Anthropic scores higher on quality and is about to set the mark that the rest of the AI field trades against. Anthropic’s revenue recognition is the variable to watch in the fall.