And that will happen no matter how investors react to the initial public offerings (IPOs) from rivals Anthropic and OpenAI, Aravind Srinivas told CNBC in a Tuesday (June 9) interview.
“Agnostic of these two companies, we were planning for something in 2028 so that still remains the case,” he said.
The report notes that Srinivas has previously said Perplexity had no plans to list before 2028, meaning these new comments indicate a firmer schedule.
The interview came soon after OpenAI filed confidentially for an IPO. Anthropic did the same last week. As covered here last week, the IPOs from OpenAI, Anthropic and Elon Musk’s SpaceX would represent three of the largest stock market listings in history.
“I certainly think there will be ripple effects if they don’t go well, like there is no sugar coating on that. The SpaceX IPO this week will definitely be a leading indicator to how Anthropic or OpenAI will go out,” Srinivas said. “I think it’s important for the AI industry that these IPOs go well, and I actually think they will go well, because they’re doing well.”
The report points out that Anthropic’s and OpenAI’s valuations are facing scrutiny from investors. OpenAI was valued at $852 billion in March, while Anthropic’s valuation is approaching $1 trillion.
Srinivas said that both startups deserve their steep valuations because “they are on the frontier.” Slowing innovations might bring those figures down, he added, but said there’s no indication this is taking place at the moment.
“If for six months you don’t see a model capability advance from one of these two companies, then it’s a problem for them,” Srinivas said.
In related news, PYMNTS wrote Monday (June 8) about OpenAI’s plans for a major overhaul of ChatGPT, combining AI agents, coding tools and third-party services into a single platform.
The stakes are “strategic as well as financial,” the report said, as OpenAI is on track to lose $14 billion this year, even as it generates $20 billion in annualized revenue and brings in 900 million weekly users — just 5.5% of whom are paying subscribers.
“Enterprise already accounts for more than 40% of OpenAI’s revenue, on track to reach parity with consumer by the end of 2026,” the report added.
“Turning ChatGPT into a funnel that moves free users toward higher-value paid products, especially its Codex coding tool, may be the path to closing that gap before an anticipated initial public offering.”
