Anthropic, developer of AI chatbot Claude, has filed its prospectus and is expected to go public on Wall Street in November at a valuation of up to US$2 trillion.

That would make it the highest-valued initial public offering (IPO) ever, ahead of SpaceX’s US$1.77 trillion listing in June. OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, is expected to follow next year.

While these AI-powered IPOs are massive, they reflect an ever bigger trend: holding AI risk is becoming unavoidable for most investors.

How much of your portfolio depends on how well AI does? If you invest in an S&P 500 index fund, the answer is about 44%.

In addition, most of the market’s gains right now come from AI. Just six companies – Apple, Microsoft, Meta and chipmakers Nvidia, Micron and AMD – delivered 57% of the S&P 500’s gains since April. Without them, the index would have risen about 4% rather than 10%.

For investors or even future retirees, that AI exposure is already in their portfolios and pension funds. For example, at the end of 2025 Australians held nearly A$1 trillion in US shares – through superannuation or pension funds, other managed funds, and their own investments.

The bond market is also full of AI risk

Normally, investors can lower their stock market risk by allocating some money to bonds, which are generally seen as safer investments.

But AI companies are now the........

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