Perplexity planning IPO in 2028 regardless of what happens to Anthropic or OpenAI, CEO tells CNBC

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said the AI company is still planning to go public in 2028, regardless of how the market receives the IPOs of Anthropic and OpenAI. The update provides a timeline rather than a financing or valuation milestone, so the immediate market impact is likely limited. The Reuters item is largely commentary on private-market strategy and the broader AI IPO pipeline.

Analysis

The key market implication is not the IPO timing itself, but the signaling effect on private AI duration. A credible 2028 window implies these franchises can keep compounding inside the private-markets wrapper longer than many expect, which should support late-stage funding terms, secondary liquidity, and valuation discipline at the margin. That tends to help the highest-quality AI infrastructure and application names more than the broad universe, because capital will continue to concentrate into perceived platform winners while weaker private assets get marked lower or starved.

Second-order, the article reinforces a bifurcation in AI monetization: winners with clear revenue scale and operating leverage should continue to trade as public-market proxies for the private AI stack, while speculative “optionality” names remain vulnerable to mean reversion. That is constructive for SMCI and APP only if the market keeps rewarding tangible usage and deployment intensity; both are more exposed to AI capex and ad-tech demand than to model breakthroughs, so they benefit from an extended buildout cycle rather than a single IPO event.

The contrarian read is that a 2028 IPO target may actually be bearish for headline AI excitement in the next 12-18 months. If the top-tier private names are not rushed to public markets, then the near-term catalyst set shifts away from IPO pops and toward execution, which usually compresses multiples for narrative-driven peers. In that regime, the trade is less about chasing “the next OpenAI” and more about owning the picks-and-shovels with visible earnings power while fading crowded pre-IPO enthusiasm.

The main risk is that the market is currently underestimating how long capital can stay private in this cycle. If private funding remains abundant through 2027, public comparables may not get the scarcity premium bulls expect, and any disappointment in monetization cadence could trigger a fast reset in AI beta. That creates a time-horizon mismatch: the thesis is supportive over years, but the stock reaction is likely to be driven by quarterly evidence, not strategic IPO plans.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Stay long SMCI on pullbacks over the next 1-3 months as a leveraged beneficiary of extended AI infrastructure spend; use a tight stop if hyperscaler capex commentary softens, because the stock will de-rate quickly on any sign of order normalization.
• Maintain a tactical long APP position into the next 1-2 quarters, but only on confirmation that AI-driven ad monetization is continuing; upside is meaningful if spend remains concentrated, while downside is sharp if AI enthusiasm broadens without revenue follow-through.
• Short a basket of high-multiple private-AI proxy names or public comps with weak earnings visibility against SMCI/APP as a pair trade; the setup favors companies with actual cash-flow conversion over narrative exposure over the next 6-12 months.
• Avoid paying up for IPO scarcity trades in the AI complex for the next 12-24 months; the 2028 framing suggests the premium for immediacy is lower than the market wants to believe, so patience should outperform chasing pre-listing optionality.
• If a public-market AI selloff occurs on any weak IPO/opening-day tape elsewhere, use it to add to the best-in-class names rather than the broad theme; dispersion should widen, and quality should outperform in a longer-private-duration regime.