Retail investors favour Anthropic over OpenAI as first frontier IPOs edge closer
Anthropic wins support as much on its own merits as from scepticism surrounding its number one competitor
8 Sep, 2026
As speculation mounts over potential IPOs of AI giants Anthropic and OpenAI, a poll of UK retail investors by Boring Money shows a clear preference for Anthropic over its biggest frontier AI competitor. If given the opportunity to buy shares in an IPO of Anthropic, 48% of UK retail investors said that they would participate. Almost 50% fewer (28%) would invest in an OpenAI floatation.
Retail investors’ interest in Anthropic is also significantly higher than their actual investment in SpaceX, whose IPO was signalled as a benchmark for retail investor appetite for AI stocks. When polled, just 26% of retail investors had already bought SpaceX shares on the secondary market, suggesting appetite for Anthropic is running significantly ahead of actual participation in the only frontier AI IPO to have taken place so far.
Why Anthropic wins
Anthropic's lead over OpenAI appears to be driven as much by product familiarity as by brand recognition. The top reasons to back Anthropic were its position as “the AI leader" (25%) and investors’ established use of Anthropic’s tools and their experience of using them (23%).
SpaceX faces valuation and Musk concerns
Part of Anthropic's advantage also appears to lie in the absence of the baggage that surrounds some rival private companies.
SpaceX, the first of the AI agents to go public, faced significant scepticism from respondents. Three-quarters (74%) said they had chosen not to invest in the company. Asked why, roughly a quarter described SpaceX as overpriced, with many arguing that its valuation had been inflated by other investors' fear of missing out (FOMO).
Elon Musk also emerged as a significant deterrent, with around one in six (17%) retail investors who shunned the SpaceX IPO citing him directly as a reason for staying away.
While valuation concerns remain a feature of the debate around all high-profile private companies, the personal objections associated with Musk were largely absent from responses about OpenAI, leaving investors focused instead on company prospects, products and pricing.
The most confident investors are the least likely to participate
The poll also reveals how the greater a retail investor's confidence in their own investment ability, the less likely they are to back one of the AI giants.
Just 17% of the most confident investors said they would buy SpaceX, compared with 35% of those in the high-confidence group. Interest in Anthropic also dropped from 59% among high-confidence investors to 33% among the very confident.
Boring Money CEO Holly Mackay comments:
