The latest flagship model from Anthropic has struggled to gain traction in the marketplace, revealing a deep fault line in the commercial playbook of the AI frontier race.

Data from payments firm Ramp, tracking spending across 70,000 businesses, shows that more than two months after the release of Fable 5, its share of total spending on Anthropic products has stabilized at roughly 11%. This is a far cry from the buying frenzy that typically follows the launch of a top-tier model in the past. Meanwhile, rival OpenAI is accelerating its counteroffensive. According to sources familiar with the matter, following the July debut of GPT 5.6, OpenAI's annualized revenue jumped 35% quarter-over-quarter, surpassing the $40 billion mark.

Anthropic is also posting rapid growth, with July annualized revenue hitting $65 billion, a significant climb from $47 billion in May. The company also recorded its first adjusted operating profit in the second quarter of this year. However, this pace still falls short of the $80 billion threshold some investors had previously anticipated, casting a shadow of uncertainty over its highly anticipated IPO prospects.

Premium Pricing Hits a Wall as Firms Switch to Cost-Effective Options

The steep price tag of Fable 5 is the core reason for its lukewarm reception. Businesses are broadly pivoting toward more economical choices, whether it be Anthropic's own smaller but capable Opus 5, or lower-cost open-source models from China and other markets.

According to Ramp data, since Opus 5 launched in late July, corporate spending on it has already eclipsed that of Fable 5, making it the de facto workhorse of Anthropic's product lineup. OpenAI's GPT 5.6 is also priced significantly lower than Fable 5, further squeezing the latter's market space.

Miles Clements, a partner at Accel and an investor of nearly $1 billion in Anthropic, noted that "most people don't need to operate at the very frontier." He pointed out that the phase where customers gravitate only toward the most advanced models "is not a sustainable era."

Ara Kharazian, chief economist at Ramp, also noted that regulatory requirements around data retention have similarly hampered the adoption of Fable 5.

Policy Disruptions Fade as Price and Performance Take Center Stage

The rollout of Fable 5 was not smooth sailing. After its initial launch in early June, the Trump administration forced Anthropic to pause promotion of the model on national security grounds, and it wasn't until July 1st that it was allowed to resume. As a result, Anthropic's revenue growth in June took a noticeable hit.

Still, analysts and investors say that political uncertainty has receded to a secondary factor in customers' model choices, with price and performance now being the primary drivers.

Kharazian admitted that predicting Anthropic's future trajectory is extremely difficult. "If you extrapolate from past trends, you'd expect Anthropic to dominate the market. But because OpenAI's latest model has performed well while Fable underdelivered, the outcome is the opposite."

IPO Outlook Under Pressure as Growth Narrative Faces a Test

The sluggish sales of Fable 5 have added a new variable to Anthropic's preparations for an IPO. Investors anticipate the listing could be valued at $2 trillion or more and might kick off as soon as next month, potentially becoming one of the largest IPOs in history.

On the fundamentals side, Anthropic continues to maintain strong momentum, with revenue growth of nearly sevenfold year-to-date. The number of enterprise clients spending over $100,000 annually has reached 6,000, and profitability is expected to continue into the third quarter.

However, Fable 5's failure to replicate the instant blockbuster rhythm of its predecessors has broken the assumption that frontier models will inevitably drive consumer spending. If enterprise clients continue to prioritize cost-effectiveness over raw compute limits, the business model of leading AI labs relying on top-tier models to fuel revenue will face a systemic reassessment.