Google agrees to a new $1 billion investment in Anthropic

Google has agreed to a new investment of more than $1 billion in generative AI startup Anthropic, a source familiar with the situation confirmed to CNBC.

The new funding builds on Google’s previous $2 billion investment in Anthropic and a 10 percent stake in the startup, as well as a major cloud deal between the two companies. Anthropic is best known for its Claude AI chatbot.

The deal comes as Anthropic, a major player in Silicon Valley’s artificial intelligence arms race, is in late-stage talks to raise a $2 billion funding round at a $60 billion valuation led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, as CNBC reported earlier this month.

In December, Anthropic’s sales reached $1 billion in annual sales, up about 10-fold from a year earlier, the source said. The company’s revenue comes primarily from corporate sales.

The Financial Times was first to report on Google’s investment.

Anthropic, which was heavily supported by Amazonwas founded by former OpenAI research leaders. Claude launched in March 2023, and like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, Claude has exploded in popularity as companies integrate generative AI chatbots into sales, marketing, and customer service functions.

The generative AI market, which includes Anthropic and OpenAI as well as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta, is expected to reach over $1 trillion in revenue within a decade. Amazon and Microsoft, the main investor in OpenAI, support generative AI startups with large investments and develop their own technologies.

Amazon announced in November that it would invest an additional $4 billion in Anthropic. This brought Amazon’s total investment in the startup to $8 billion. Amazon remains a minority investor, Anthropic confirmed to CNBC at the time, and does not have a seat on the board.

As part of this investment, Amazon Web Services became Anthropic’s “primary cloud and training partner.” Anthropic has since used Amazon Web Services’ Trainium and Inferentia chips to train and deploy its largest AI models.

Anthropic has ramped up its technology development over the past year, and in October the startup announced that its AI agents were capable of using computers like humans to complete complex tasks. Anthropic’s computer usage feature allows its technology to interpret what is displayed on a computer screen, select buttons, enter text, navigate websites and perform tasks across any software and real-time Internet browsing, the startup said.

The tool can “use computers in basically the same way we do,” Jared Kaplan, Anthropic’s chief science officer, said in an interview with CNBC at the time. He said it can complete tasks with “tens or even hundreds of steps.”

OpenAI is reportedly planning to introduce a similar feature soon.

Anthropic introduced Claude 3.5 Sonnet, its more powerful AI model, in June, and in September the startup launched Claude Enterprise, its biggest new product since launching its chatbot.

REGARD: Anthropic CEO: More confident than ever that we are “very close” to powerful AI capabilities