Anthropic’s aggressive preparations for a major IPO, including confidential S-1 filings, founder voting control measures, and multibillion-dollar cloud infrastructure deals such as the recent $11.6 billion Akamai agreement, underpin the 97.2% market-implied probability against an acquisition before 2027. The company’s rapid revenue growth to a $65 billion annualized run rate and focus on independent scaling of its Claude large language models have reinforced trader consensus that it will remain standalone through year-end. While past acquisition talks with startups like Decart and MatX ultimately collapsed, realistic tail risks such as regulatory delays to the IPO, an unexpectedly attractive strategic bid, or shifts in competitive dynamics could still alter the outcome before the close of 2026.