Perplexity eyes 2028 IPO as OpenAI and Anthropic prepare to test AI investor appetite – Firstpost

Artificial intelligence startup Perplexity is sticking to its plans for a public listing in 2028, even as rivals OpenAI and Anthropic prepare for what could become some of the biggest technology IPOs in history, setting the stage for a crucial test of investor appetite for AI companies.

Perplexity chief executive Aravind Srinivas said the company’s IPO roadmap remains unchanged regardless of how the market reacts to the blockbuster
listings expected from OpenAI and Anthropic.

“Agnostic of these two companies, we were planning for something in 2028, so that still remains the case,” Srinivas told CNBC in an interview aired on Tuesday.

The comments come as the artificial intelligence industry enters a new phase, with leading AI firms increasingly looking to public markets after attracting hundreds of billions of dollars in private capital.

Last week, Anthropic, the company behind the Claude family of AI models, confidentially filed for a US initial public offering. The startup was most recently valued at nearly $1 trillion following a major fundraising round.

OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT and the world’s most prominent AI company, has also confidentially filed for a US IPO and is reportedly targeting a valuation of up to $1 trillion in a listing that could take place later this year.

Alongside the anticipated debut of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the offerings are expected to rank among the largest public market debuts ever and could serve as a referendum on whether investors are willing to support the lofty valuations that have become common across the AI sector.

AI IPOs seen as key market test

While Srinivas acknowledged that the performance of OpenAI and Anthropic could influence broader sentiment towards AI stocks, he said Perplexity’s plans would not be dictated by their outcomes.

“I certainly think there will be ripple effects if they don’t go well. There is no sugar coating on that,” Srinivas said.

“The SpaceX IPO this week will definitely be a leading indicator to how Anthropic or OpenAI will go out.”

Despite those risks, Srinivas expressed confidence that investors would embrace the upcoming listings.

“I think it’s important for the AI industry that these IPOs go well, and I actually think they will go well, because they’re doing well,” he said.

The anticipated market debuts come amid soaring investor interest in artificial intelligence following the rapid adoption of generative AI tools by consumers and businesses worldwide.

OpenAI recently disclosed that ChatGPT has more than 900 million weekly active users and over 50 million paying subscribers. The company has also reported monthly revenue of approximately $2 billion, underscoring the scale of demand for AI-powered products.

Anthropic has similarly emerged as a major force in the sector, with its Claude models gaining popularity among software developers and enterprise customers.

Valuations depend on continued innovation

The valuations assigned to AI companies have become a focal point for investors, with questions emerging over whether the sector’s rapid growth can justify trillion-dollar market capitalisations.

Srinivas argued that both OpenAI and Anthropic deserve their premium valuations because they remain at the forefront of AI development.

“They are on the frontier,” he said, referring to the companies’ status as leaders in advanced AI research and model development.

However, he warned that sustaining those valuations would require continued technological progress.

“If for six months you don’t see a model capability advance from one of these two companies, then it’s a problem for them,” Srinivas said.

His comments reflect growing expectations among investors that AI companies must continue delivering breakthroughs to justify the enormous amounts of capital flowing into the sector.

Focus shifts to AI spending discipline

Beyond growth and valuations, the industry is also grappling with questions about the cost of deploying advanced AI systems.

The issue has gained prominence as businesses increasingly scrutinise their spending on AI tools and infrastructure.

According to reports, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman recently highlighted AI costs as a major topic of discussion among corporate customers, signalling that companies are paying closer attention to returns on their AI investments.

Srinivas said one emerging trend is “tokenmaxxing,” where employees increase their use of AI tools to demonstrate productivity. However, he believes businesses are becoming more focused on efficiency rather than simply maximising AI usage.

“People don’t want to just tokenmax. They really want to use whatever model is the best for that particular task,” he said.

Perplexity’s platform draws on AI models from multiple providers and automatically selects the most suitable model based on performance and cost.

“If there is an open-source model that gets the job done 90 per cent of the time, I’d probably use that if it’s 10 to 20 times cheaper than the frontier model,” Srinivas explained.

“The future is still awesome for frontier intelligence, but it’s not going to be mindless spending, as we saw in the last few months.”

Perplexity charts its own course

Founded as an AI-powered search and answer engine, Perplexity has positioned itself differently from companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic by integrating models from multiple AI developers rather than relying solely on its own technology.

While the company remains smaller than its better-funded rivals, Srinivas’s comments suggest confidence that Perplexity can build sufficient scale to pursue a public listing by 2028.

For now, the spotlight remains firmly on OpenAI and Anthropic, whose IPOs are expected to become defining moments for the AI industry and a major test of whether public market investors are as enthusiastic about artificial intelligence as private investors have been.

Perplexity, meanwhile, appears content to watch from the sidelines while preparing for its own turn on Wall Street later this decade.