Anthropic Q1 Revenue Up 80x, Yes 80x
Anthropic, the folks behind Claude, just posted Q1 numbers that show revenue grew 80 times over compared to a year ago. That is not a typo.
Why it matters: a year back, plenty of folks said the foundation model market was a winner take all game with OpenAI sitting on top. Turns out customers want options.
My take: this is what real competition looks like. Anthropic carved out a niche with safety first messaging and enterprise buyers ate it up. If you are building on AI, having two strong players bidding for your business is a great thing for your wallet.
Pentagon Signs AI Deals, Skips Anthropic
The Department of Defense announced fresh AI contracts this week. Notably missing from the list: Anthropic.
Why it matters: defense work is steady money but it comes with strings. Some companies want the contracts. Others want to keep their hands clean of certain kinds of work.
My take: Anthropic has been pretty open about being careful on military uses of their tech. That probably costs them some short term revenue. But I respect the spine. Not every company has to chase every dollar, and the ones that pick their lane usually win the long game.
Novo Nordisk Goes All In With OpenAI
Danish pharma giant Novo Nordisk just signed a sweeping deal with OpenAI. Drug discovery, clinical trials, manufacturing, the whole supply chain. They want it running on OpenAI tech by year end.
Why it matters: this is one of the biggest enterprise AI bets we have seen from a non tech company. Novo makes the Ozempic stuff. They are not a startup playing pretend.
My take: pharma is a great use case for AI. Long timelines, mountains of data, expensive trials. If AI shaves even a few months off drug development, the math works out fast. I would bet a steak dinner that pharma ends up being the loudest AI success story before the year is out.
AI Blamed for Job Cuts, Again
For the second month running, companies cited AI as the top reason for layoffs in April. But here is the twist: software developer employment actually hit a record high in 2025 and grew another 4 percent into March 2026.
Why it matters: the headline scares people. The full picture is more complicated than the headline suggests.
My take: AI is changing which jobs exist. It is not vacuuming up the whole labor market. Developers who learn to work with these tools are doing better than ever. The folks getting cut are mostly doing tasks that should have been automated years ago. Hard truth, but truth.
That is the roundup. More tomorrow.