OpenAI's latest funding round values the company at $1.25 trillion, short of the $1.4 trillion valuation it had been seeking, according to Bloomberg, in reports confirmed by TechCrunch and The Verge. The round has raised $11 billion so far and could grow to $20 billion, The Verge reported.

The news comes days after Anthropic, OpenAI's closest rival, filed its S-1 registration to go public, according to The Verge. TechCrunch also describes Anthropic as gearing up for its own IPO. It is the first time both leading generative-AI model makers are moving, within the same stretch of days, toward valuations tested by outside public-market investors rather than private funding rounds.

OpenAI's new figure is higher than where it stood in March, when it raised $122 billion at an $852 billion valuation, according to The Verge. Still, it falls short of the company's more recent ambition: OpenAI originally sought up to $30 billion in this round at the higher $1.4 trillion valuation, the outlet reported.

Anthropic's own valuation expectations have also narrowed. Bloomberg reported Friday, as cited by TechCrunch, that Anthropic's estimated valuation fell from $2 trillion in early October to a range of $1.2 to $1.3 trillion. The same report says Anthropic is expected to receive a "junk," or speculative-grade, rating from credit agencies.

Why spending isn't keeping pace

Behind both revisions is a slowdown in corporate AI spending, according to data from expense-management platform Ramp cited by TechCrunch. Token spend grew just 1.5% between August and September, after climbing 42% in July. Growth picked back up in October, rising 8.9% between September 23 and October 23.

Ramp's lead economist, Ara Kharazian, told TechCrunch the slowdown isn't a demand problem — AI usage volumes are still rising — but a pricing one. Price cuts from the model makers themselves, he said, have made AI cheaper to use without necessarily growing the companies' own revenue.

The pattern shows up in both companies' price lists. OpenAI cut API prices in half for its GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna models in September, according to TechCrunch. Anthropic also lowered prices for Fable 5.1 and Opus 5.5 — a cut the company said, in a filing cited by TechCrunch, slashed its revenue growth by about $600 million.

The competitive pressure extends beyond the two largest model makers, Kharazian told TechCrunch. Meta and Nvidia are rolling out enterprise offerings built on cheap or open-source models, and a wave of open-weight models from Chinese and U.S. developers has given buyers more providers to choose from, pushing prices down further.

Kharazian added, per TechCrunch, that almost all current AI spend still comes from venture-backed, high-growth tech firms. Median companies in Ramp's data spend $12 to $15 per employee per month; the top 10% spend $600 to $1,000. Both figures remain far below the roughly $10,000 per employee that the top 1% of AI-heavy firms were hitting at their summer peak, Kharazian said.

Notion co-founder Akshay Kothari posted internal data that matched Ramp's findings, writing on social media, as quoted by TechCrunch: "tokens go brrr. costs go ahhh."

Anthropic's S-1 filing does not yet include a public offering date, according to The Verge.

In practice

  • OpenAI's current valuation: $1.25 trillion, per Bloomberg; the round has raised $11 billion so far, with a target of up to $20 billion, per The Verge.
  • Anthropic's status: filed its S-1 to go public, with no offering date set yet, per The Verge.
  • Anthropic's estimated valuation: $1.2 to $1.3 trillion, down from a $2 trillion October estimate, per Bloomberg via TechCrunch.
  • AI spending trend: token spend grew 1.5% in August-September (versus 42% in July), then rose 8.9% in October, per Ramp data cited by TechCrunch.