Anthropic and the Claude AI: The Rise to AI Giant – Evaluation, Competition and Ethical Visions

#### From OpenAI renegade to $183 billion giant: The incredible story of Anthropic ### The AI ​​with the "kill switch": Why this company's founders distrust their own technology ### $1.5 billion fine: This AI giant narrowly avoided bankruptcy – and is now more valuable than ever ### More than ChatGPT: Claude can read entire books at once – and that's just the beginning ###

Founded out of concern for OpenAI: Siblings build a rival – and are now worth $183 billion

In the fast-moving world of artificial intelligence, there's a new giant threatening to overshadow even industry leader OpenAI: Anthropic. In just four years, the startup, founded in 2021, has catapulted itself into the stratosphere of tech valuations, reaching a staggering $183 billion valuation after a recent funding round. But behind these impressive numbers lies a story that goes far beyond pure business growth. Founded by former OpenAI executives Dario and Daniela Amodei, Anthropic was born out of deep concern about the commercial nature of AI development. Their goal: to create an artificial intelligence where safety and ethics aren't just added on as an afterthought, but woven into the system's DNA from the ground up.

This article explores Anthropic's rapid rise and analyzes the key factors behind its success: from its unique "Constitutional AI," which gives its AI model Claude a kind of ethical conscience, to its strategic partnerships with Amazon and Google, and its fierce competition with OpenAI. We delve deep into its innovative corporate structure with a built-in "kill switch," examine a multi-billion dollar legal battle that nearly brought the company down, and reveal the ambitious yet troubling vision of its founder, Dario Amodei. Discover how Anthropic is not only disrupting the AI ​​market but also raising the fundamental question of how we can safely shape a future with superintelligent AI.

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What makes Anthropic one of the most valuable companies in the world?

What forces enabled a company founded only in 2021 to become one of the world's most highly valued startups within four years? Anthropic has provided a compelling answer to this question with its latest funding round. The company raised $13 billion, reaching a valuation of $183 billion. This figure is not only impressive, but also represents a tripling of the company's valuation compared to March 2025, when the company was valued at $61.5 billion.

The Series F financing round was led by ICONIQ, with support from renowned investors such as Fidelity Management & Research Company, Lightspeed Venture Partners, the Qatar Investment Authority, Blackstone, and Coatue. These investors represent a broad range of institutional investors who believe in the potential of artificial intelligence and specifically in Anthropic's approach.

Who are the minds behind this success?

The story of Anthropic is inextricably linked to siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei. Dario Amodei previously served as Vice President of Research at OpenAI and was instrumental in the development of the GPT-2 and GPT-3 models. The decision to leave OpenAI and found his own company resulted from fundamental disagreements about the strategic direction of AI development.

The Amodei siblings were concerned about the increasing commoditization of AI technologies, especially after OpenAI's partnership with Microsoft in 2019. Their vision was to create a company that puts safety and ethical considerations at the heart of AI development, rather than focusing primarily on rapid monetization.

This philosophy is also reflected in the company's unique structure. Anthropic operates as a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) and has implemented a special governance structure. The Long-Term Benefit Trust holds special "Class T" shares, which allow the appointment and removal of three of the five directors. This structure acts as a kind of "kill switch" mechanism to intervene should AI development drift in a dangerous direction.

How does the Constitutional AI concept work?

What sets Anthropic's approach apart from other AI companies? The core concept is called Constitutional AI and represents a fundamental shift in the way AI systems are trained. Instead of relying exclusively on human feedback, Anthropic uses a two-step process in which AI systems learn to evaluate and improve their own responses based on a defined "constitution" of ethical principles.

In the first phase, the model learns to critically examine its responses and correct them according to constitutional principles. In the second phase, this self-generated feedback is used as a reward signal for a reinforcement learning process, which Anthropic calls "Reinforcement Learning from AI Feedback" (RLAIF).

This constitution is not rigid, but is continuously evolving. It's noteworthy that Anthropic not only consulted experts to develop these principles, but also engaged approximately 1,000 US citizens in the democratic process. The core principles include protection from illegal or harmful content, privacy protection, promoting fairness, and avoiding discrimination.

What role does Claude play in the competition?

Claude, Anthropic's AI assistant, competes directly with OpenAI's ChatGPT and other leading AI systems. What makes Claude special? The system features exceptionally large context windows – the current version, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, can process up to 200,000 tokens, equivalent to approximately 150,000 words. In comparison, GPT-4 Turbo supports "only" 128,000 tokens.

A particular success is Claude Code, which has already generated over $500 million in annual revenue since its full launch in May 2025. Usage growth in this area has increased more than tenfold within just three months. These figures illustrate how quickly specialized AI applications can gain acceptance in the enterprise sector.

Claude differentiates itself from competing products through its integrated focus on security and ethical guidelines. While other vendors often implement these aspects after the fact, Claude's architecture is built from the ground up. This makes the system particularly attractive for enterprise customers in regulated industries such as finance, healthcare, or legal.

How is Anthropic's business developing?

Anthropic's business performance demonstrates impressive momentum. The company increased its projected annual revenue from approximately $1 billion at the beginning of 2025 to more than $5 billion in August 2025. This fivefold increase in revenue within eight months underscores the explosive growth in the AI ​​sector.

The development of the customer base is particularly remarkable. The number of major customers grew sevenfold within a year. Krishna Rao, Anthropic's Chief Financial Officer, emphasizes that customers rely on Anthropic's models and platform products for their most important, business-critical tasks. Demand is growing exponentially, enabling this unprecedented growth.

The fresh capital from the latest financing round will pursue three main goals: meeting growing demand from enterprise customers, deepening security research, and supporting international expansion. The latter point is particularly interesting, as Anthropic has so far focused primarily on the US market.

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Which strategic partnerships shape the company?

Anthropic's growth is not only organic but also driven by strategic partnerships. Amazon has established itself as one of its key partners, not only as an investor but also through a formal partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS). This collaboration provides Anthropic with access to extensive cloud computing resources essential for training large-scale AI models.

Google also invested in Anthropic early on. At the end of 2022, the search engine giant invested $300 million, acquiring a 10 percent stake. This investment gave Anthropic access to Google's massive computing resources and provided an important foundation for its future development.

An interesting aspect is the establishment of a National Security and Public Sector Advisory Council. This initiative aims to strengthen cooperation with the U.S. government and allied governments. At a time when AI technologies are increasingly viewed as strategically important for national security, Anthropic is positioning itself as a trusted partner for government institutions.

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How does Anthropic handle legal challenges?

The AI ​​industry is increasingly facing copyright lawsuits, and Anthropic is no exception. The company recently reached a landmark settlement with a group of authors who had accused the company of unlawfully using copyrighted works to train its AI assistant, Claude.

The settlement amounts to at least $1.5 billion and affects approximately 500,000 books. Compensation of approximately $3,000 per affected work is provided. This sum is considered the largest compensation ever paid for copyright infringement and could have a signaling effect for the entire industry.

Crucial to the case was the court's finding that while training AI with protected texts could, under certain circumstances, be covered by the US principle of "fair use," downloading content from illegal sources was not. The court found that Anthropic had known of the unlawful origin of the data, which significantly tightened the legal situation.

The settlement allowed Anthropic to avoid litigation that could have resulted in fines of up to $150,000 per book. This could have resulted in a total of up to $75 billion, jeopardizing the company's existence.

How does Anthropic position itself vis-à-vis OpenAI?

The comparison with OpenAI is inevitable, as both companies compete in the field of large-scale language models. OpenAI currently plans to increase its valuation to approximately $500 billion. This would value OpenAI at half a trillion dollars, significantly higher than Anthropic's current valuation of $183 billion.

Despite these valuation differences, interesting shifts in market dynamics are evident. According to investor reports, OpenAI is losing market share while Anthropic is gaining. OpenAI's market share fell from 50 to 34 percent, while Anthropic increased from 12 to 24 percent. However, these figures come from an Anthropic investor and should be interpreted with caution.

The strategic differences between the two companies are becoming increasingly clear. While OpenAI focuses on broad market coverage and rapid commercialization, Anthropic focuses on security and ethical AI development. This positioning makes Anthropic particularly attractive to enterprise customers in regulated industries where compliance and trust are top priorities.

OpenAI is currently working on GPT-5, which is described as "significantly more advanced" than its previous version. Meanwhile, Anthropic is continuously developing its Claude family, with releases such as Claude 3.7 Sonnet and the latest Claude Sonnet 4.

What is Dario Amodei’s vision for the future of AI?

Dario Amodei's vision for the future of AI is both ambitious and disturbing. In his essay on the "compressed century," he describes the possibility that by 2026, an AI could be developed that is more intelligent than Nobel laureates in several scientific disciplines combined. This superintelligence could perform the scientific feats of an entire nation of geniuses in data centers.

However, Amodei also emphasizes the risks of this development. In an interview, he explained that two main dangers exist: AI systems could pursue strategic and dangerous goals, or they could make harmless errors in situations where these have serious consequences. Both scenarios could lead to disasters.

Amodei's personal motivation for developing safe AI is deeply rooted in a moving experience: the loss of his father to an illness that later became treatable. This experience showed him the positive potential of AI while simultaneously highlighting the need for responsible development.

Instead of maximizing profits, Anthropic invests all revenues in developing new AI models. This strategy particularly benefits enterprise customers that require more complex applications. Amodei warns against excessive pessimism and the purely profit-oriented mindset that often prevails in the industry.

How is the global AI market developing?

The global AI market continues to experience explosive growth, despite occasional doubts about the sustainability of investments. According to PitchBook, funding volume for US startups increased by 75.6 percent in the first half of 2025 thanks to the ongoing AI boom. Total AI startup funding exceeded $100 billion in 2024, an 80 percent increase over the previous year.

Around a third of all venture capital investments now flow into AI startups. US companies continue to dominate the market and receive the majority of investments. Generative AI is the biggest investment magnet, attracting about a third of all AI investments.

The number of AI unicorns (startups valued at over $1 billion) now exceeds 50 companies worldwide. Anthropic is among the highest-valued and is now the fourth most valuable unicorn in the world, behind only SpaceX, ByteDance, and OpenAI.

What challenges and risks exist?

Despite impressive growth, AI companies face significant challenges. The development costs for the next generation of AI models are astronomical. OpenAI, for example, has raised its spending forecast to $115 billion by 2029. These figures highlight the enormous capital requirements in the AI ​​industry.

Regulatory challenges are increasingly shaping the valuations of AI companies. With the global introduction of stricter guidelines on data protection, algorithm transparency, and AI ethics, startups with robust compliance strategies are becoming more attractive to investors. Companies that proactively address regulatory concerns are better positioned for long-term success in an increasingly scrutinized industry.

The question of sustainable unit-cost economics is becoming increasingly urgent. Investors are moving away from hype-driven valuations and focusing on AI startups that demonstrate financial discipline, cost-effective growth, and scalable business models. This trend reflects a more mature investment perspective that prioritizes long-term value creation over speculative hype.

What impact does Anthropic's success have on the industry?

Anthropic's success sends important signals to the entire AI industry. The company demonstrates that a focus on safety and ethical standards can be not only morally imperative but also commercially successful. This could encourage other companies to pursue similar approaches.

The multi-billion dollar settlement in the copyright lawsuit could have far-reaching implications. As the first significant settlement in a copyright dispute involving AI training, it could serve as a precedent for future cases. Other AI companies could feel pressured to proactively enter into licensing agreements with copyright holders.

The emphasis on international expansion also demonstrates that the AI ​​market is becoming increasingly global. While American companies have dominated so far, European and Asian markets could gain importance. Anthropic's plan to expand internationally could trigger new competitive dynamics.

What does this mean for the future of AI development?

Anthropic's story illustrates several important trends in AI development. First, the importance of safety and ethical standards is increasingly recognized by investors and customers. Second, the enormous valuations demonstrate that AI is viewed as a transformative technology with the potential for massive economic impact.

The move toward more cost-effective and efficient AI models could further change industry dynamics. Models like DeepSeek have shown that highly optimized architectures can significantly reduce operating costs. This could lead to a democratization of AI technology, with smaller companies gaining greater access to advanced AI capabilities.

The focus on industry-specific AI applications is likely to intensify. Investors are increasingly prioritizing AI startups that solve real-world business problems rather than developing general models. This shift is driven by the realization that customized AI solutions offer greater monetization potential and faster market adoption.

The Anthropic story demonstrates that innovation in the AI ​​industry can be driven not only by technological advances, but also by new approaches to governance, ethics, and safety. The company has proven that it is possible to achieve both commercial success and maintain high ethical standards—a lesson that should be relevant for the entire industry.

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