Shares of US software companies that announced partnerships with Anthropic surged on Tuesday, helping to lift the broader tech sector. The rebound comes after software stocks had been under pressure, as investors worry that rapid advances in AI could disrupt traditional business models.
AI startup Anthropic said it was developing new tools, the so-called “plug-ins”, with its partners that could be integrated to enhance the workflow of investment banking, wealth management and HR tasks, Bloomberg reported.
Artificial Intelligence can help in tasks such as deal reviews, portfolio analysis and making new-hire materials that would reflect a particular brand’s tone and policies, the agency report said.
Which companies’ shares saw a surge?
Following the development, shares of Anthropic’s partners, including LSEG, FactSet, Salesforce’s Slack, and DocuSign, rose between 0.4% and 5.3%.
The S&P 500 software & services index also rose 1.4% and the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF jumped 2.4%.
Meanwhile, the software index touched a 10-month low on Monday after Citrini Research released a 2028 scenario where unemployment climbs to 10.2%, driven by layoffs as AI rapidly turfs out software and delivery applications, Bloomberg reported.
A week-long selloff earlier this month erased roughly $1 trillion in market value on Wall Street, in what analysts dubbed ‘Software-mageddon’. The sharp downturn hit a wide range of sectors spanning from software to logistics companies, impacting markets not just in the United States, but also across the Europe and India.
Anthropic’s Claude code tool announcement erodes IBM’s stock
In another development, Anthropic said on Monday that its Claude Code tool could be used to modernise a programming language run on IBM systems. Following the announcement, the legacy company witnessed its biggest daily drop in shares in more than 25 years. However, IBM shares recovered the losses, as they were up 3.5% on Tuesday.
IBM shares closed 13.15% lower at $223.35 after the massive investor selloff during Monday’s stock market session. With the shares falling 27% in February alone, the company is on track to mark its biggest one-month fall since at least 1968, reported Bloomberg.
Tax-preparation software Intuit gained 2.8% and AI-solutions provider Intapp climbed 7.1% after the companies announced separate partnerships with Anthropic on Tuesday.
