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NewsMaterial5 min readDisconfirmAI Editorial

Anthropic's $40 Trillion Market: Not Software Sales, but the Value of Human Labor

The Core editor Kim Song-hyun analyzes Anthropic's S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), pointing out that its $40 trillion potential market stems from the economic value of global knowledge labor rather than traditional software sales; this framing expands the narrative space for AI companies, but investment judgments must still return to revenue, costs, profit margins, and infrastructure contracts.

2026-11-02 18:10 GMT+8

As Anthropic prepares for its initial public offering (IPO), one of the most attention-grabbing figures is not revenue, but "$40 trillion." In an analysis published on November 2, 2026, Kim Song-hyun, editor at The Core (South Korea), noted that in the S-1 registration statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Anthropic stated that the economic value of work performed by global knowledge workers exceeded $40 trillion last year. While Anthropic did not explicitly label this figure as a "Total Addressable Market" (TAM), the article argues that it effectively transforms the value of productivity gains AI could deliver into a business opportunity within investment narratives.

What truly warrants close examination here is the shift in market definition. Historically, companies have typically defined their markets based on what they sell—for example, estimating the spending scale around current products and services. Anthropic’s approach differs: it takes human work that AI can replace or augment as its starting point. The economic value of knowledge labor—including development, research, accounting, legal services, and office work—is included in the potential market. AI companies are no longer just selling model API calls or software seats, but rather execution capabilities that enter enterprise workflows.

The Core compares this shift to previous public listings. Companies like Snowflake estimated markets largely based on existing product spending; Airbnb and Uber incorporated the economic activity connected by their services into their market definitions; and in discussions related to its listing, SpaceX presented a market opportunity where AI accounted for a significant portion. Anthropic’s $40 trillion figure appears more aggressive because it uses the "value of human labor" itself as the market boundary. The larger the boundary, the grander the story may seem, but it also risks obscuring a key distinction: the creation of economic value does not equal a company’s ability to capture revenue.

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The article illustrates this distinction with a simple example: if AI helps a company save 10 billion South Korean won in costs annually, the price the company pays for AI services may be far lower than 10 billion won. A significant portion of those saved costs might become profits for the adopting company or be passed back to customers. Therefore, even if AI has a substantial cumulative impact on the global economy, how much revenue Anthropic captures depends on pricing, competition, customer budgets, and switching costs. The Core also cites IDC forecasts suggesting that investments in AI solutions and services could generate a cumulative impact of $22.5 trillion on the global economy by 2031, but this remains a macroeconomic productivity metric, not Anthropic’s order book.

From the operational numbers disclosed in the S-1 analysis, Anthropic’s growth is indeed rapid. The article states that Anthropic’s 2025 revenue was $4.585 billion, while Q1 2026 revenue reached $4.731 billion, already surpassing the full-year 2025 total. Q2 2026 revenue was $11.555 billion, bringing the first-half total to $16.286 billion—approximately 14 times the same period last year. Meanwhile, the company still reported an operating loss of approximately $693 million in the first half, but the loss rate dropped significantly from about 184% in the prior year’s first half to roughly 4%. In Q2, GAAP operating profit was approximately $974 million, with an operating margin of about 8.4%.

More critical is the cost structure. The Core points out that Anthropic’s compute and infrastructure costs as a percentage of revenue fell from 201% in the first half of 2025 to 55% in the first half of 2026, dropping further to 48% in Q2. This indicates that revenue growth is outpacing compute cost growth, signaling improved economics for AI services. However, generative AI differs from traditional software: every user query incurs inference costs. Therefore, one cannot rely solely on gross margins; one must also examine how overall compute, R&D, and free-user support costs are allocated.

Anthropic’s long-term risks stem from infrastructure contracts and competitive boundaries. The article notes that S-1 analysis reveals seven major compute-related contracts totaling approximately $637 billion, of which about $431 billion carries minimum spend or lease obligations, and about $206 billion is tied to supply volumes and conditions. These multi-year contracts do not represent immediate, certain liabilities requiring upfront payment, but if capacity expansion outpaces customer demand, cost pressures will emerge prematurely; conversely, if compute supply is insufficient, it may constrain revenue growth. A large AI market does not guarantee that a company can simultaneously achieve scale, profitability, and capital efficiency.

Product adoption supports this assessment. The Core reports that in Q3 2026, enterprise clients not using Claude Code had average monthly spending below $75, whereas among clients using Claude Code, the top 5% in spending spent approximately 20 times that amount. This implies that Anthropic’s growth is driven not only by model API calls but by AI penetrating deeper into development, enterprise processes, and task execution. It is transitioning from selling model capabilities to selling an execution platform for enterprise workflows.

Therefore, the investment implication is not simply that “the $40 trillion market is huge, so Anthropic is definitely worth a high valuation.” The Core cautions that at a $1.5 trillion valuation with a 25x net profit multiple, it would require approximately $60 billion in annual net profit. Assuming a net profit margin of 20% to 24%, annual revenue would need to reach approximately $250 billion to $300 billion. Even with current rapid growth, this is a scale that requires time to verify. For readers, the key metrics to track are whether Anthropic can convert revenue into sustainable profits amid rapid expansion, and whether it can transform the narrative of human labor value into workflow revenue that customers are willing to pay for over the long term.

Sources

  • thecore.mediaThe Core(더코어)↗
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