Anthropic may put out a new AI model earlier than planned, according to a Reuters exclusive cited by the source article. That report landed only days after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei publicly told the industry to slow AI development down.
Fable 5.1 was followed quickly by Astra
On Sept. 1, Anthropic rolled out Fable 5.1 and called it its best model yet for coding and knowledge work. It also slashed cache-read pricing by 75% to keep enterprise customers from drifting away on cost.
Then, just two days later, on Sept. 3, OpenAI launched Astra. At the time, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said, "We are working to get Astra into everyone's hands as quickly as possible."
OpenRouter data showed a rapid shift
OpenRouter figures cited in the article showed Astra taking roughly 13% of enterprise AI spending share a little more than two weeks after launch. Anthropic’s Fable line, by contrast, was at 8%.
Peter Walker, head of analysis at OpenRouter, also posted several charts showing Astra coming from zero and steadily eating into Anthropic’s share.
OpenRouter’s official data on weekly token usage share for OpenAI and Anthropic models from January to September 2026 told the same story. Anthropic stayed above 50% from January through June. But after Astra arrived, OpenAI climbed fast. By the first week of September, OpenAI was at about 65%, while Anthropic had dropped to about 35%. The article said this was OpenAI’s first lead over Anthropic in two and a half years.
Calls to slow AI were followed by a review of launch timing
On Sept. 12, Amodei published a lengthy essay urging the industry to "slow the pace of AI development." Seven days later, Reuters reported that Anthropic was considering an earlier release for a new model.
The source article also said Altman and Elon Musk had both publicly backed Amodei, saying, "Dario is right." Even so, Anthropic is now weighing whether to change its release schedule because of market pressure.
The article also said that two months after Fable 5 launched, enterprise customers were not upgrading to the priciest flagship model as much as expected. Its share held around 11%, while more customers picked the cheaper Opus 5.
Reuters also pointed to a possible IPO delay
Reuters said Anthropic’s IPO may slip until November. The article also cited information saying Claude is heavily involved in development work linked to the next-generation model.
Put together, the timeline in the report shows Anthropic publicly emphasizing safety and slower development while also deciding whether to pull forward a model launch after Astra’s release and before its IPO window.