Anthropic is testing the waters with meeting about a potential IPO, according to CNBC's Faber

Early-stage IPO soundings of this kind, a company holding exploratory meetings rather than appointing banks or filing, sit at the soft end of the signal spectrum: in comparable episodes the gap between testing the waters and an actual listing has ranged from months to indefinite deferral, with market conditions the usual determinant. Reports attributed to a single well-sourced television correspondent carry weight in the pre-filing phase, since the company itself has no obligation to confirm and typically will not. For the listed peer set, the established read-through is to the valuation comparables: a credible listing by a large private AI developer creates a public benchmark that has tended in past cycles to reprice adjacent names on relative value rather than fundamentals. What distinguishes this category from routine float news is the company's standing as a core AI pure play, which means the eventual pricing would be treated as a referendum on the private-markets AI complex. The follow-ons are whether banks are formally mandated, any indication of target timing, and whether secondary share trades in the private market adjust ahead of a filing. As a single-source early signal, it is directional only.