Anthropic’s IPO filing warns its AI could pose existential risks to humanity

Good afternoon, friends, and happy hump day. Your next online purchase might be made by an AI agent acting on your behalf — and the payments industry isn’t sure yet whether to be excited or worried. Today we get into agentic commerce: how it works, where trust breaks down, and what adoption looks like in Egypt and the region. We also visited a restaurant in Cairo where every dish comes with its full macronutrient breakdown. That and more.

Without further ado, the news…

THE BIG STORY ABROAD-

🌐 No single story is dominating the press this afternoon, but several are indeed vying for the top spot. Here’s what’s getting plenty of ink:

Anthropic’s IPO prospectus spends nearly 80 of the filing’s 261 pages discussing the risks associated with its AI models — almost twice the number of pages spent describing its core business. The risks flagged include AI models exhibiting self-preserving behavior, resisting shutdown, and engaging in manipulation and blackmail. The company warned that developing highly advanced models could further increase the risk of catastrophic or existential harm to humanity.

On the less bleak end, the company’s revenue grew to USD 4.6 bn in 2025, a 12x y-o-y increase. However, Anthropic logged an operating loss of more than USD 8 bn (up from 3 bn y-o-y) and a net loss of USD 42 bn. That said, the company plans on dishing out USD 518 bn on cloud, computing, and infrastructure obligations and is eyeing a USD 2 tn IPO.

^^Read more on: Reuters, Forbes, and Financial Times.

MEANWHILE- The five UK nationals arrested near RAF Fairford earlier this week have been released on bail, with counter-terrorism police continuing to pursue multiple lines of inquiry into a suspected plot against the US air base used to strike Iranian targets. US State Secretary Marco Rubio told Fox News that a “foreign actor” was involved.

^^Read more on: CNN, BBC, and The Guardian.

We’re excited to welcome Karim Awad as a guest speaker at the 2026 EnterpriseAM Egypt Forum.

Karim Awad is group CEO, chairman of the executive committee, and a member of the board of directors of EFG Holding S.A.E., a financial institution with a universal bank in Egypt and the leading investment bank in the Middle East and North Africa. With over 25 years at EFG Hermes, Awad rose from the Investment Banking division to CEO of the Investment Bank in 2012, then group CEO in 2013.

Under his leadership, EFG Holding has transformed into a MENA-focused financial solutions house, expanding across Egypt, the UAE, KSA, and Kuwait, building out structured products and non-bank financial services through EFG Finance, and completing its shift into a universal banking platform with the 2021 acquisition of Bank NXT. The firm's revenues reached EGP 26.0 bn and profits EGP 4.1 bn in 2025.

Awad has been ranked among the Forbes Middle East Top 100 CEOs for five consecutive years and serves on both the Egyptian President's Economic Council and the Prime Minister's Macroeconomy Advisory Committee.

Join us on 5 October in Cairo. Attendance is by invitation only, and we've reached full capacity.

Request your invitation here to join the waitlist.

** CATCH UP QUICK on the top stories from today’s EnterpriseAM:

• The Housing Ministry completed a draft law to create the Egyptian Real Estate Developers Union and is now discussing it with developers before it goes to Cabinet and then the House. The draft makes union membership compulsory, requires a separate escrow account for every project and dissolves the existing Real Estate Development Chamber, while leaving questions over how developers will be classified;
• The European Commission proposed excluding Egypt from importing EU-origin ferrous and non-ferrous metal scrap when the bloc’s revamped Waste Shipment Regulation takes full effect on 21 May 2027, threatening a core feedstock for Egypt’s steel mills. The draft lists non-OECD countries authorized to receive non-hazardous waste from the EU. Egypt was excluded for ferrous and non-ferrous metal scrap after the Commission found it failed to demonstrate environmentally sound waste management;
• Egypt is the only market on FTSE Russell’s watch list for a potential knock-down to frontier status from secondary emerging, with the LSEG-owned index provider set to publish its annual country classification after US market close on Tuesday, 6 October. The country has already cleared the market cap threshold on June data, and the securities count that decides the rest is being taken from FTSE’s September semi-annual review of its Global Equity Index Series (GEIS), effective from the market open on 21 September;
• The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is considering a USD 120 mn debt investment to fund Alcazar Energy’s acquisition of the 580 MW Gabal El Zeit wind farm in the Red Sea Governorate. The USD 420 mn agreement Alcazar signed in June with the New and Renewable Energy Authority and the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company locked in the commercial terms and the 25-year PPA. The IFC’s debt is a separate piece of financing.

☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- Tomorrow brings plenty of sunshine in the capital, with the mercury set to peak at just 31°C before dropping down to a cool overnight low of 20°C, according to our favorite weather app.