TLDR
Anthropic's IPO prospectus shows its advertising spend rose from US$33 million in 2024 to US$147 million in 2025, while it repeats its promise to keep Claude free of ads. The filing, lodged ahead of a planned Nasdaq listing next month, also shows revenue of US$4.6 billion in 2025 and a loss of US$41.9 billion.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The numbers
Anthropic, the maker of Claude, spent US$147 million on advertising in 2025, up from US$33 million the year before, according to the prospectus it has lodged with the US Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of a planned Nasdaq listing next month. In 2023 its advertising was not large enough to report.[1]
Its wider sales, marketing and partnerships costs reached US$568 million in 2025. Revenue rose to US$4.6 billion from US$386 million in 2024, while the loss widened to US$41.9 billion from US$8.3 billion, much of it a non-cash charge.[1] In the first half of 2026, revenue reached US$16.3 billion, up from US$1.2 billion a year earlier, Digiday reported.[2]
"The promotion of our brand requires us to make substantial expenditures, which we anticipate will increase as our market becomes more competitive," the prospectus says.[1]
Buying ads, not selling them
The filing also restates Anthropic's commitment to keep Claude itself free of advertising. "Once advertising becomes part of a company's revenue targets, the pressure to optimise for engagement tends to grow. We have chosen not to introduce that pressure into Claude," it says.[1]
Anthropic first made that promise in February, when it said Claude "will remain ad-free" and that it makes its money from enterprise contracts and paid subscriptions.[3] It used Super Bowl airtime the same month to make the point, just as OpenAI began running ads in ChatGPT.[2]
For advertisers, that leaves the two biggest AI assistants on opposite sides: ChatGPT is building an ad business, and Claude is a large advertiser that sells no ad space of its own.
The Australian copyright fight
The prospectus warns that unfavourable changes to intellectual property law, or adverse court rulings, could force Anthropic to modify, retrain or limit its models. Anthropic agreed last year to pay US$1.5 billion to settle a US class action brought by authors, while disputing wrongdoing.[1]
The same question is live in Australia, where the federal government is weighing copyright changes that would make it easier for AI companies to train on Australian content. Anthropic and OpenAI have both pushed for changes to the rules, arguing that copyright uncertainty holds back AI investment here.[1]
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James Dore is founder and editor of Prompt the Market and Strategy Director at Bushnote, a Sydney strategy, SEO and AI search agency. He has a background in strategy, media and financial services, and led consumer product marketing at MONEYME. He writes on AI search, answer engines, technology policy and media economics.
