According to a Financial Times report, Anthropic's US customers are using cheaper alternatives instead of the company's most powerful and expensive models. This raises questions about Anthropic's high-cost business model ahead of its planned IPO, which is expected to be the largest ever.
Key takeaways
Payment processor Ramp analyzed spending data from 70,000 companies and found that Fable 5 spending, Anthropic's flagship model, has stagnated at around 11% of Anthropic's total spending, even after more than two months since its launch.
"The pattern of 'always using the latest and greatest model' has been broken. The reason is simply that high price + older models can handle most tasks.
Miles Clements, a partner at Accel, which invested about $1 billion in Anthropic: "Most people don't need to work on the Frontier," referring to Anthropic's most powerful model. He added that the era of choosing only Frontier models "was not sustainable." Clements predicts that the top-performing models will increasingly be used as 'showcases' for promises like curing diseases.
Shortly after its launch in early June, the Trump administration forced Anthropic to withdraw Fable 5 due to national security concerns. It was reapproved on July 1st. Now, price and performance are the main factors influencing model selection, rather than political risk. However, Ramp's chief economist Ara Kharazian points out that the government's data retention regulations could be a hurdle for Fable adoption.
Performance/IPO
July annualized revenue of $65 billion ($47 billion in May → increase), but falling short of the optimistic projections that exceeded $80 billion. Still, a roughly sevenfold growth compared to the beginning of the year.
First adjusted operating profit in Q2, with a possibility of profitability in Q3 as well. Over 6,000 customers spend more than $100,000 annually.
IPO expected as early as next month, with a valuation estimated at over $2 trillion.
Competitive Landscape
Cheaper open-weight models from China and other regions are expanding choices.
OpenAI bounced back in July with the release of GPT 5.6, achieving a 35% quarterly revenue increase, surpassing $40 billion. GPT 5.6 is significantly cheaper than Fable 5.
Even among Anthropic's own models, the smaller and cheaper Opus 5, launched at the end of July, has already surpassed Fable in terms of corporate spending.
Kharazian: "If the previous trend continued, Anthropic would have dominated the market. However, due to OpenAI's latest model being exceptionally good and Fable's underperformance, the opposite has occurred."
Source: Financial Times, "Anthropic's best AI model struggles to attract users as cheaper tools thrive" (2026.8.23)
▶ Original source: https://archive.md/ZLojz
▶ Original source: https://www.ft.com/content/5ee49718-c258-4f01-aa32-7e5b76ae5245
