Anthropic rockets past $3 billion—AI’s revenue race is on

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Happy Wednesday, and welcome to your latest edition of First AI Movers Pro. Let’s jump straight into the headline that everyone in the Valley is buzzing about.

Anthropic hits a $3 billion run-rate, five months after clearing one billion

Anthropic’s enterprise push is paying off—loudly. The startup now says its contracts are generating revenue at a three-billion-dollar annual clip, triple the pace it reported in December and up fifty percent since March.

Why it matters, in plain terms:

• Enterprise wallets are opening. While OpenAI still dominates consumer subscriptions, Anthropic is winning dev teams that need code-generation and safety tooling baked in.

• Fastest SaaS climb ever? VC Alex Clayton calls Anthropic “possibly the quickest company to scale to this level of software revenue.”

• A tale of two go-to-markets. OpenAI expects about twelve billion dollars in 2025 revenue, mostly from ChatGPT Plus seats. Anthropic’s model-as-a-service bet suggests the real volume, and perhaps the next moat, lives inside corporate firewalls.

Taken together, the numbers reframe the AI battleground: consumer buzz may grab headlines, but steady B2B contracts are turning into the bigger, stickier prize.

Meanwhile, in other corners of the AI world…

Quick takes

• Amazon tests AI “Hear the highlights”. — Tap a button in the Amazon app and two synthetic hosts read you product features and top reviews, turning shopping into a short podcast.

• NY Times inks first generative-AI deal—with Amazon. — The multi-year license lets Alexa quote Times journalism and train on its archives, even as the paper sues Microsoft and OpenAI over unlicensed use.

• Zoom nudges guidance higher on AI Companion demand. — Fiscal-2026 revenue outlook rises as clip-generation and meeting-summary features gain traction.

• IBM and Ferrari rev up fan engagement. — A rebuilt mobile app uses IBM’s watsonx to pipe real-time race data and personalized content to tifosi worldwide.