Anthropic Reportedly Plans New AI Model Before IPO to Counter OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra
Anthropic is reportedly evaluating the launch of a new AI model ahead of a potential IPO to counter market pressure from OpenAI's recently released GPT-6 Astra. The plan comes shortly after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei publicly advocated for slowing down AI capability iteration to manage safety risks. The situation highlights the intense commercial pressure on top AI startups to protect enterprise market share and maintain revenue growth ahead of going public. It underscores the friction between corporate commitments to AI safety and the financial realities of market competition. OpenAI released GPT-6 Astra in September 2026, quickly capturing roughly 13% of enterprise AI spending tracked by platform Ramp, compared to 8% for Anthropic's Claude Fable. Anthropic is currently assessing the safety protocols of its next-generation model while internal discussions balance R&D expenditures against profitability goals.
## BACKGROUND
Anthropic and OpenAI are leading developers of commercial large language models (LLMs) competing primarily for enterprise AI adoption. Both companies face high R&D costs and intense competition, not only from each other and tech giants like Google, but also from open-source AI models.