Anthropic's IPO filing answers one of the biggest questions about the AI boom: Can AI labs actually make money?

Posters on a wall at Anthropic's developer conference in San Francisco. Alistair Barr/Business Insider

For years, one of the biggest unanswered questions about the artificial intelligence boom has been surprisingly simple: Can the companies building the world's most powerful AI models actually make money?

After spending hours poring over Anthropic's IPO filing on Monday, we finally have an answer: Yes. And potentially lots of it.

A couple of Chinese AI labs went public earlier, revealing appalling financial results that sowed doubt about the industry's economics. Now Anthropic has provided a much more compelling demonstration of how this business can work at enormous scale.

The numbers are remarkable. Anthropic generated $11.6 billion in revenue during the second quarter of 2026, up 1,368% from a year earlier.…