Further details from the San Francisco presentation reported by the Financial Times and The Information showed Anthropic generates $1.70 in revenue for every $1 spent on compute, indicating compute costs equal about 59% of revenue and are largely excluded from its 85% adjusted gross margin. The company also posted an adjusted operating margin above 11%, positive free cash flow and a second straight quarter of adjusted operating profit, though executives warned heavy spending on compute and biomedical research could alter that trajectory as Anthropic faces $518 billion in 10 year infrastructure commitments, including $413 billion in non-cancelable obligations.
Anthropic told investors that rival labs distilling its Claude models accounted for 5% to 7% of revenue, or more than $840 million in the third quarter, a stream it expects to decline after materially curbing the practice. Revenue per customer has also come under pressure as major clients Meta and Microsoft shift toward in-house AI tools and as Anthropic cuts token prices to compete with OpenAI and cheaper Chinese models. While Reuters reported that Anthropic projected a $110 billion year end annual revenue run rate at the event, another source familiar with the meeting said the company gave no September or full year ARR outlook, leaving analysts to estimate a September run rate of $69 billion to $74 billion, barely above July's $65 billion pace.