AI Industry Surges with Revenue Boom and Major Acquisitions

API/서비스 | Wed Aug 19 2026 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) | 4 sources

Anthropic's revenue surged, Stripe acquired OpenRouter, and Perplexity expanded in the Indian market as the AI services sector continues to grow.

Analysis

[Anthropic] surpassed $65 billion in annualized revenue ^[2]

Reached $65B annualized revenue run rate as of end of July
Grew from $47B in May and $9B at end of last year
Projected $100B-$120B by end of 2026
Targeting over $2 trillion valuation for IPO

[Stripe] acquired AI gateway startup OpenRouter for over $7 billion ^[3]

Deal reportedly exceeds $7 billion according to Bloomberg
OpenRouter raised $113M Series B in May at $1.3B valuation
Provides access to over 400 AI models with 8 million users
Positioned as 'the Stripe of AI'

[Perplexity] saw 60% revenue increase in India after free offer ended ^[1]

Revenue rebounded after Airtel free promotion ended
Downloads decreased but paid conversions increased
Acquired millions of new users in the Indian market

[Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei] characterized AI backlash as a 'crisis of trust' ^[4]

Acknowledged public negative perception of AI is a major issue
Rejected the claim that his own risk warnings are the cause
Rejected the framing of regulation versus broad deployment as binary
The real critique is that AI companies have not yet delivered on major promises to the world

Sources