5 unexpected risk factors Anthropic is worried about

Anthropic ( ANTH.PVT ) on Monday filed paperwork for its blockbuster IPO , widely anticipated to be the largest in history, underscoring the massive expectations for the frontier AI lab and a testament to Wall Street's excitement around the AI transformation.

It'll trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol "ANT."

The documents, known as an S-1 ( read the whole thing here ), give us the clearest picture yet of Anthropic's business. The financials are fascinating — the company took in $16 billion while losing over $80 billion in the first half of the year — and the Terminator-esque warnings of AI safety are there.

But some of the juiciest parts come from the section on risk factors, which outline all the threats facing the company. But no one is more creatively pessimistic than a good securities lawyer. (One of those risks is about the effects of negative media coverage of, you guessed it, risks.)

There are plenty of obvious and boilerplate risks. But here are five unexpected risks Anthropic is worried about and that investors should keep a close eye on:

Anthropic's customer base is narrow and sensitive to downturns

"A significant portion of our customer base consists of startups and technology-oriented enterprises that may be more sensitive to adverse macroeconomic conditions and may reduce or delay spending during a downturn," the company wrote.

It's a perk of the AI business that frontier labs can count the most ambitious technology companies in the country as their customers. Who needs lots of customers when you have the best ones? That's a sweet deal in good times. But as the risk factor states, having a basket of clients so heavily concentrated in one sector can spell trouble if economic conditions change.

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If that's not enough, the company notes that "A substantial portion of our revenue and accounts receivable is driven by a limited number of customers and distribution channels."

In other words, small in number and potentially high in sensitivity.

For all the talk of the tech giants struggling to meet the expectations of this AI moment, fending off nagging questions about ROI on huge AI spending, it's important to remember they were gigantic, profitable businesses before ChatGPT exploded onto the scene. They are advertising juggernauts, e-commerce meccas, and cloud service titans. Anthropic, on the other hand, doesn't have a hugely successful legacy business. There's no Facebook or Amazon Prime. It's mostly just Claude.