Anthropic likely to select EY as auditor amid Big Four conflicts

When three out of four major accounting firms are already doing business with you, your auditor shortlist gets very short. Anthropic, the AI safety company behind the Claude model, appears poised to tap EY as its external financial auditor, largely because the other Big Four firms have entangled themselves in commercial partnerships that would make independent auditing a regulatory headache. Deloitte, PwC, and KPMG have all signed significant alliances with Anthropic, deploying Claude across their workforces and building new business units around the technology. EY, meanwhile, has been investing its AI chips elsewhere, building on Microsoft and Nvidia technology instead. That strategic divergence now gives EY something none of its rivals can offer Anthropic: a clean slate. The conflict web Auditor independence isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s a foundational requirement under professional ethics standards, and it becomes especially critical when a company is eyeing a potential IPO. An auditor that also collects revenue from a client through consulting or technology partnerships creates exactly the kind of dual relationship that regulators frown upon. Deloitte went deep first. In Octo...