The close relationships between AI startups and their Big Tech backers have been investigated by the Federal Trade Commission under Joe Biden’s administration.
Under outgoing Commissioner Lina Khan, the FTC had targeted Google and Amazon’s investments in Anthropic and Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI, examining the deals’ impact on competition in the nascent sector. But with Khan leaving in the coming weeks, negotiators are growing more confident in their ability to build ties.
Anthropic’s revenue hit $1 billion annualized in December, about 10 times more than a year earlier, according to a person familiar with the company’s finances.
Still, investors don’t expect Anthropic or its competitors to be profitable in the near future, given the high costs of developing major AI models. With further advances, they believe the technology could ultimately create billions of dollars of value.
“Right now, I am more confident than ever before that we are very close to powerful capabilities… AI systems that are better than almost all humans at almost any task,” the CEO said of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, in a press release. interview with CNBC on Tuesday.
Anthropic, founded in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI employees, sought to differentiate itself from competitors by focusing on AI security. He has poached several employees from OpenAI in recent months, including a co-founder of the company.
The group was also the first to offer certain features, such as the ability of its AI to control computers, and is focusing this year, alongside its competitors, on creating AI agents, software capable of accomplishing tasks and browse the web on behalf of human users.
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