There’s a growing rift in the AI industry — and it’s not between companies. It’s between the industry and the public. Anthropic is sitting at an $800 billion valuation while OpenAI just closed a $122 billion funding round. But public sentiment is turning. And it’s happening right as both companies prepare to go public.
What the numbers show
CNBC reports on increasing skepticism toward AI and the massive data centers that power it. Local communities are pushing back against new data center projects. The concerns are concrete: water consumption, energy demand, noise, and whether the promised jobs will actually materialize.
The Stanford AI Index 2026, released this week, confirms the trend: the trust gap between AI developers and the general public is widening, not shrinking. People are using AI tools more frequently, but trust in the companies behind them is declining.
The IPO dilemma
For Anthropic and OpenAI, the timing is unfortunate. Anthropic is targeting an October IPO at a valuation potentially exceeding $60 billion. OpenAI, now valued at $852 billion, is also planning to go public. Both need positive public perception to attract retail investors.
But the news cycle is working against them. Anthropic’s Mythos model has put regulators worldwide on alert. Claude users are complaining about throttled performance. And the debate about AI data center energy consumption is getting louder, not quieter.
Tech industry vs. the public
It’s reminiscent of earlier tech cycles. Social media was once the future — until the public discovered the downsides. Crypto was revolutionary — until it wasn’t. AI is at a similar inflection point: the technology is getting better and more powerful, but that alone isn’t enough anymore.
The companies keep investing massively. Anthropic just signed a 3.5-gigawatt deal with Google and Broadcom. OpenAI is scaling its workforce to 8,000. The industry is going all-in on continued growth. But whether the public follows along is a different question.
What this means for the IPOs
Going public in an environment of growing AI skepticism isn’t impossible — but it’s riskier than the valuations suggest. Retail investors respond to sentiment, not just revenue numbers. And the sentiment is getting more mixed by the week.
This doesn’t mean the IPOs will fail. But it means Anthropic and OpenAI need to convince not just investors, but the public too. And that’s getting harder as the debate about AI’s costs grows louder.
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