BUSINESS

Anthropic spent the past year building a reputation as the company willing to slow down when everyone else sped up.

That reputation is now colliding with the pressure of an approaching IPO and a rival that just raised the stakes considerably.

The result is a genuinely awkward moment for the company. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei sent a warning message urging the entire industry to pace itself more carefully. Just days later, his own company is reportedly weighing whether to rush out a new model to keep pace with OpenAI.

Anthropic weighs a new AI model ahead of IPO

Anthropic is considering rolling out a new AI model to counter OpenAI’s momentum following the launch of GPT-6 Astra, according to three sources familiar with the matter, as reported by Reuters. The potential timing comes ahead of Anthropic’s expected IPO and shortly after Amodei’s public call for the industry to slow the pace of releasing new capabilities over safety concerns.

Nobody close to those discussions is missing the irony. Amodei told the world to slow down on Sept. 12. His company may be preparing to speed up on Sept. 19.

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Anthropic is evaluating the safety of any potential next model as part of its internal deliberations over a possible release. Some of the discussions also involve how to balance further investment in new models against efforts to strengthen the company’s profitability, as rising interest rates make investors increasingly focused on when expected profits will actually materialize.

This is also happening against a backdrop that has changed across the whole AI industry. Rates are higher. Open-source competition from China is intensifying. The pressure on every major AI company to show a credible path to profitability is real.

Chasing capability milestones gets harder to justify when investors want to know when the cash actually starts flowing. Anthropic declined to comment, Reuters reported.

OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra gains enterprise traction

The competitive pressure driving Anthropic’s deliberations traces directly back to OpenAI’s early September launch. OpenAI released GPT-6 Astra on Sept. 3, touting gains in computer use, software engineering, cybersecurity, and general professional work.

CEO Sam Altman told CNBC the model represented “a new capability level” that had already changed his own workflows, according to CNBC.

The cybersecurity piece made the launch unusual. Astra was the first OpenAI model to hit the “Critical” tier under the company’s Preparedness Framework. That designation triggered deployment restrictions and a staged rollout through vetted enterprise customers rather than a standard wide release.

Astra’s rollout extended across ChatGPT’s Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise tiers, along with the OpenAI API and Amazon Web Services, giving the model broad enterprise reach within days of its launch. GPT-6 Astra has also helped OpenAI claim the top spot on OpenRouter, the platform that routes developer traffic across AI models, for the first time in more than two and a half years, Reuters reported.

The market share shift is already visible in corporate spending data.

Astra accounted for roughly 13% of enterprise AI spending tracked by corporate expense platform Ramp, compared with roughly 8% for Anthropic’s Claude. A shift that has prompted potential Anthropic IPO investors to scrutinize whether OpenAI could begin taking meaningful shares from a company viewed for months as the clear leader in enterprise AI tools, Reuters reported.

Anthropic is evaluating the safety of any potential next model as part of its internal deliberations over a possible release.Bloomberg / Getty Images

Anthropic maintains its revenue advantage

Despite that scrutiny, some investors close to both companies do not see Astra as an immediate threat to Anthropic’s position.

Existing investors and those planning to invest in both companies’ IPOs said they do not believe Astra poses a significant near-term risk, citing the size of Anthropic’s lead in enterprise AI and the amount of time it typically takes to unseat an incumbent vendor at large companies.

The revenue numbers back up that confidence. Anthropic’s annualized revenue run rate grew to about $65 billion by the end of July, up from about $9 billion at the end of 2025. OpenAI’s own annualized run rate passed $40 billion in the same month, leaving a substantial gap between the two companies, CNBC reported.

Anthropic is also projecting roughly $190 billion to $200 billion in revenue for 2028, a forecast TheStreet has previously reported and one that continues to anchor much of Wall Street’s effort to value the company ahead of its IPO.

OpenAI is not standing still on the enterprise front either. CFO Sarah Friar recently told investors that OpenAI’s enterprise revenue has now passed its consumer revenue, a shift the company is using to argue it can compete for the same durable, multi-year contracts that have helped drive Anthropic’s rapid growth, according to TheStreet.

Bigger challenges ahead for both companies

The rivalry between Anthropic and OpenAI may prove less important than a broader threat building underneath both companies.

The rise of open-source and open-weight models can lower token costs and let businesses build more of their own AI infrastructure rather than relying on providers like Anthropic and OpenAI at all. A dynamic reshaping how both companies compete for the same enterprise dollars even before OpenAI completes its own listing.

That shift threatens to compress margins across the commercial AI industry, giving companies far more options to develop and run models outside the leading providers and broadening the competitive threat well beyond the narrower race between these two labs.

A risk that makes OpenAI’s own push to reinvent ChatGPT around agentic, enterprise-grade work even more important as it competes for corporate spending, as TheStreet has reported.

Timing adds one more layer of complexity to Anthropic’s calculus. The company could push its IPO to after the November midterm elections, according to two people familiar with the matter, a delay not expected to meaningfully affect the offering but one that gives Anthropic more room to decide whether a new model launch makes sense before or after it goes public.

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For banks, cutting costs increasingly means deciding which businesses are worth keeping.

Truist is the latest major lender to make that choice.

It has decided to exit a longtime auto-finance operation as it narrows its focus on businesses that can generate stronger returns and deeper customer relationships.

And this decision will come with a human cost.

Regional Acceptance Corporation, an auto-finance company affiliated with Truist Bank, plans to permanently close its facility at 1351 East Bardin Road in Arlington, Texas, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) reviewed by TheStreet. 

Approximately 205 full-time employees are expected to lose their jobs as a result of the closure.

The first separations are expected around Nov. 30, with all employment losses completed by Feb. 28, 2027, when the facility is expected to completely cease operations.

The Arlington closure is tied to Truist’s decision to substantially sell all of Regional Acceptance’s near-prime auto-loan portfolio.

This marks another step in the bank’s pullback from parts of consumer lending it considers less attractive.

Truist exits $5.5 billion auto-loan business

Truist said it had agreed to sell $5.5 billion in near-prime auto loans, representing substantially all of Regional Acceptance’s assets.

The company did not disclose the buyer.

Regional Acceptance specializes in financing vehicle purchases for borrowers generally outside the strongest prime-credit segment and has operated in auto lending for more than four decades.

Truist expects the transaction to produce approximately $5.2 billion in net proceeds as well as a $535 million recapture of loan-loss reserves. 

The sale was expected to close on Sept. 15.

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The Arlington WARN notice confirms that the facility closure is related to the asset sale and that Regional Acceptance will cease operations at the location following the transaction.

For Truist, the move is about more than reducing its workforce.

Regional Acceptance produced approximately break-even pretax earnings during the first six months of 2026, while Truist said exiting the business would improve its credit profile and free up capital.

The transaction is expected to create approximately $945 million of common equity tier 1 capital, while reducing both nonperforming loans and annualized net charge-offs.

Truist intends to use proceeds from the loan sale in part to repay wholesale borrowings.

Truist’s stock is down around 2% year to date.hapabapa / Getty Images

Truist has been pulling back from consumer lending

The Regional Acceptance shutdown follows other moves by Truist to shrink lending operations it considers less profitable or less connected to its core customers.

During the second quarter, Truist stopped originating marine and recreational-vehicle loans and significantly reduced originations in other consumer lending areas, including prime and nonprime auto loans.

The bank said those changes were expected to reduce 2026 loan production across the affected portfolios by roughly 40% compared with 2025.

“We discontinued the origination of certain marine and recreational vehicle loans, and we further reduced originations in less strategic and less profitable consumer lending units such as prime and non-prime auto,” said the company statement.

While those loans can generate interest income, Truist said the businesses offer lower long-term returns and fewer opportunities to develop broader customer relationships.

The changes are part of a wider strategic review that has gained momentum under new Chief Executive Mike Lyons.

Lyons took over as CEO on Sept. 1, succeeding Bill Rogers, after previously leading payments and financial-technology company Fiserv.

Just two weeks into his tenure, Truist unveiled the Regional Acceptance transaction.

Major banks continue cutting jobs

Truist’s layoffs come as several major financial institutions are also reducing staffing, although the reasons behind the cuts vary.

Citigroup began another year of workforce reductions in January, cutting roughly 1,000 jobs as part of a previously announced plan to eliminate 20,000 positions by the end of 2026. 

Additional layoffs were expected after employee bonuses were paid.

The reductions are part of CEO Jane Fraser’s multiyear restructuring of Citi aimed at simplifying operations and cutting expenses.

That effort is still underway. 

Citi CFO Gonzalo Luchetti said during the bank’s second-quarter earnings call that “productivity efforts had helped reduce headcount to 219,000, while Citi had incurred more than $800 million in severance costs through the first half of 2026.”

Wells Fargo has also steadily reduced its workforce.

CEO Charlie Scharf said in the company’s Q2 earnings call that the bank’s “efficiency initiatives” are visible in its headcount.

It has “declined for 24 consecutive quarters. In the second quarter, our headcount was down 197,000, down 79,000 from six years ago, 15,000 from last year, and 3,500 from last quarter,” said Scharf.

Further adding that these reductions are used to offset broader investments such as new bankers, advisors, managers, and traders to drive the bank’s growth.

Technology is increasingly a part of that equation.

Wells Fargo CFO Mike Santomassimo said this week that the company is using artificial intelligence to automate tasks, including coding and call-center work, and expects the technology to contribute to further reductions in headcount.

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Gain experiences, memories and a substantial contribution to your future nest egg.

If you get that anxious feeling in your gut anytime you need to pull your wallet or swipe your card, you are not alone. One of the biggest retailers in the country highlighted this pressure among shoppers. 

Home Depot has battled a worrisome consumer trend for a while now. The major issue, highlighted many times in the retailer’s filings and earnings reports, is the fact that squeezed consumers have cut their discretionary spending. 

This trend is highlighted across the broader retail industry, with consumers signaling plans to “pull back across a broad range of discretionary purchases,” a recent McKinsey consumer survey confirmed.  

The retailer’s foot traffic data, provided by Placer.ai, aligns with the trend, revealing that average visits per Home Depot location dropped 0.6% year over year, steeper than the 0.4% decrease its top rival, Lowe’s, saw, according to TheStreet’s Patricia Battle. 

Battle further highlighted that Home Depot saw a drop in big-ticket sales as high mortgage rates keep the housing market frozen. Consumers are avoiding large home improvement projects due to economic uncertainty, prompting Home Depot to focus on faster delivery and improved customer service to boost sales.

At the recent Goldman Sachs Global Consumer and Retail Conference, Home Depot management painted a stark picture of the American shopper. 

Consumers are ‘pressured’ with no end in sight: Home Depot CFO

Home Depot management highlighted that consumers remain under severe financial pressure, resulting in a shift away from large discretionary projects and toward basic, essential home maintenance. 

To combat this consumer fatigue, the company is holding prices steady by pulling back on promotions and aggressively expanding its fast-delivery options to win over cautious shoppers.

Home Depot CFO Richard McPhail emphasized that this isn’t a new problem, but a worsening one, with no relief in sight. 

“When you look at the broader macro, it’s really hard to see any points of inflection in the stats that we look at. The consumer has become more pressured over time over the last 6 quarters,” McPhail said. 

Home Depot customers are pivoting from large, discretionary projects to essential home maintenance.Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Consumers are only fixing what’s broken 

When consumers tighten their wallets amid a challenging economic environment, they don’t stop spending entirely but do change the way they spend. 

When it comes to spending for the house, the discretionary spending pullback is severe.  “Net intent was lowest for home decor (–32 percent), followed by accessories (–30 percent) and furniture (–29 percent),” according to the McKinsey & Company consumer sentiment report, updated in August 2026. 

What does this mean for Home Depot? Basically, consumers are pulling from “wants” to focus on “needs,” spending mostly on survival maintenance. If an appliance breaks or a pipe bursts, shoppers will buy what they need to fix it. But major, elective home improvements are being put on hold.

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“What they tell us is there’s just so much uncertainty right now, you think inflation, interest rates, fuel prices, job concerns. They’re not yet ready to unleash that power of spending into large projects, but we know that the potential is there. At the same time, we don’t see anything we could point to that says there’s an inflection in demand,” McPhail said. 

William Bastek, Home Depot’s executive vice president of Merchandising, confirmed this massive shift in shopping habits. Bastek noted that the company’s growth is coming “really core down the middle.”

“I think plumbing, electrical, hardware, tools, really had a great performance, both in-store and online,” Bastek said.

He noted that the company is “really pleased with the performance and I think the maintenance categories.”

However, outside of those essential emergency fixes, the business is feeling the weight of the consumer’s struggles.

“There’s some pressure related to some of the categories that we didn’t call out,” Bastek admitted.

Home Depot’s focus on prices and speed 

To deal with this tough backdrop, Home Depot is shifting its strategy to keep customers coming through the door. Instead of relying on flashy sales or temporary discounts, the retailer is pulling back on promotions.

The goal is to keep everyday prices flat, even as costs rise behind the scenes.

Management used money from recent tariff refunds to swallow unexpected expenses rather than raising prices on shoppers.

“And our focus in merchandising has been to keep that value every single day. We’ve been less promotional. We’ve used some of the historical promotional activity to continue to make sure that every day, we can keep our prices where they are today, even with the significant impacts of what we’ve seen incrementally in the first half, we’ll do that into the back half of the year,” Bastek added.

Beyond price stability, the company is betting on convenience and speed to win over hesitant shoppers. Home Depot is also aggressively expanding its delivery options so customers can get what they need quickly.

“We’re seeing 65% of our parcel shipments are shipped same-day, next-day,” Bastek noted. He added that “55% of our big and bulky products are delivered within 2 days.”

Earlier this year, I reported on the retailer’s new real-time GPS delivery tracker for heavy building materials such as lumber, drywall, and concrete. Designed primarily for Pro contractors, the live tracking tool provides minute-by-minute updates to help job sites prepare for drop-offs and prevent costly downtime.

The company is also trying to get associates out from behind tasks so they can spend more time helping shoppers on the store floor. One example is Home Depot’s deployment of AI-powered phone agents to resolve routine customer calls four times faster, freeing up store associates to spend more time helping shoppers in person, as TheStreet previously reported. 

Home Depot believes speed will be the ultimate traffic driver when consumers are pressed for time and money. 

“Our goal here is delivery in 2 hours or less for a majority of the assortment in our stores, and we’re working to shrink that delivery window every day,” McPhail said.

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