Anthropic releases Claude Opus 4.6 as AI model triggers software stocks selloff across Wall Street

Anthropic Releases New Model That's Adept at Financial Research

Anthropic plans to focus on improving its AI models to carry out work related to areas like cybersecurity, life sciences, health care and financial services, according to Scott White, the company's head of product for Claude AI models. Anthropic is releasing a new version of its most powerful AI model that's designed to carry out financial research, days after the company's push into legal services upended the stocks of legacy software makers. The company on Thursday unveiled Claude Opus 4.6, which it says can scrutinize company data, regulatory filings and market information to come up with detailed financial analyses that would normally take a person days to complete. Opus 4.6 is also meant to be better at a range of other work-related functions, including making spreadsheets and presentations, as well as software development. Shares of financial services companies slumped following the release, with FactSet Research Systems Inc. falling as much as 10%, while S&P Global Inc., Moody's Corp and Nasdaq, Inc. all turned sharply lower. Anthropic and rival OpenAI have spent much of the past year developing artificial intelligence tools to streamline a wider range of professional tasks - from financial services to health care - with the goal of courting more business customers and justifying their lofty valuations. Anthropic is currently in talks to raise a new round of funding at a $350 billion valuation and OpenAI is in fundraising discussions at a valuation of up to $830 billion. OpenAI also introduced an update on Thursday to its AI coding agent, Codex, that's meant to further streamline the process of writing and debugging code, and can be used to build software like complicated games and apps. The ChatGPT maker stressed that the product's capabilities extend beyond writing software to a range of other related documentation and presentation work, such as helping to create slide decks and analyze user data. Anthropic, for its part, has more than 300,000 business customers who use its models to streamline workplace responsibilities, particularly in the field of computer programming where it has emerged as a market leader with Claude Code. The Claude maker's expansion beyond coding has recently rattled Wall Street. Anthropic's quiet release of a tool to automate certain legal work helped spark a trillion-dollar market meltdown this week, particularly among software stocks that investors fear may eventually be rendered obsolete. The product has become a proxy for concerns about which companies and services will eventually be disrupted by AI. The legal feature is a plug-in for Claude Cowork, an AI agent released as a "research preview" earlier this year. Cowork quickly made waves among technology enthusiasts for being a more intuitive tool for building apps, creating spreadsheets and sorting through troves of data. Anthropic said Cowork was built in a matter of days, with most of the code written by Claude's own AI. Scott White, Anthropic's head of product for Claude AI models, said the company plans to focus on improving the capability to carry out work related to areas like cybersecurity, life sciences, health care and financial services. "Those are areas where we're going to lean in really hard," he said. Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, competes with firms including S&P Global Inc. and FactSet Research Systems Inc. in providing financial data and news. Bloomberg Law sells legal research tools and software.

Anthropic releases AI upgrade as market punishes software stocks

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Technology startup Anthropic on Thursday launched what it called an improved artificial intelligence model, days after its product advances helped kick-start a selloff of traditional software stocks. The San Francisco-based lab, which is backed by Amazon.com (AMZN.O), opens new tab and Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google, said its Claude Opus 4.6 model is an upgrade to the Opus 4.5 model released in November. The new AI can work on tasks for longer and more reliably, while showing gains related to coding and finance, Anthropic said. Anthropic also teased how this tech could process 1 million pieces of data known as "tokens" in a single prompt, matching a capability earlier claimed by Google and a less powerful Claude model. And it previewed how this AI, in the computer programming tool Claude Code, could divvy up tasks among multiple autonomous agents and get work done faster. Seen as a disruptor in the software industry, Anthropic is aiming to stay at technology's frontier ahead of its highly anticipated initial public offering, at a time of competition from Google and OpenAI. Software developers have embraced its AI for coding. Anthropic is meanwhile making a push for business deals with products like Claude Cowork, which executes computer tasks for white-collar workers. The AI companies' swift deployments have stoked market moves that predict older software businesses will lose relevance as AI beats them at their own game. Shares of Salesforce (CRM.N), opens new tab, Workday (WDAY.O), opens new tab and Thomson Reuters (TRI.TO), opens new tab each traded around 3% lower Thursday, extending declines over the past week. Still, technology industry figures, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, have dismissed such concerns about disruption, arguing that the specialized products, vast data and AI adoption of older software companies will provide a moat. Scott White, Anthropic's head of product for enterprise, also said the goal was to connect AI to older software tools to make them more useful. "We are excited to partner and actually lower the floor to get more value out of those tools," White told Reuters. Claude Cowork, he said, is more like "the front door to getting hard work done." Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco; Editing by Lisa Shumaker Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab * Suggested Topics: * Retail & Consumer Jeffrey Dastin Thomson Reuters Jeffrey Dastin is a correspondent for Reuters based in San Francisco, where he reports on the technology industry and artificial intelligence. He joined Reuters in 2014, originally writing about airlines and travel from the New York bureau. Dastin graduated from Yale University with a degree in history. He was part of a team that examined lobbying by Amazon.com around the world, for which he won a SOPA Award in 2022.

Anthropic Launches New Model That Spots Zero Days, Makes Wall Street Traders Lose Their Minds

Anthropic, the makers of the popular and code-competent chatbot Claude, released a new model Thursday called Claude Opus 4.6. The company is doubling down on coding capabilities, claiming that the new model "plans more carefully, sustains agentic tasks for longer, can operate more reliably in larger codebases, and has better code review and debugging skills to catch its own mistakes." It seems the model is also pretty good at catching other people's mistakes. According to a report from Axios, Opus 4.6 was able to spot more than 500 previously undisclosed zero-day security vulnerabilities in open-source libraries during its testing period. It also reportedly did so without receiving specific prompting to go hunting for flawsâ€"it just spotted and reported them. That's a nice change of pace from all of the many developments that have been happening around OpenClaw, an open-source AI agent that most users have been running with Claude Opus 4.5. A number of vibe-coded projects that have come out of the community have had some pretty major security flaws. Maybe Anthropic's upgrade will be able to catch those issues before they become everyone else's problem. Claude's calling card has been coding for some time now, but it seems Anthropic is looking to make a splash elsewhere with this update. The company said Opus 4.6 will be better at other work tasks like creating PowerPoint presentations and navigating documents in Excel. Seems those features will be key to Cowork, Anthropic's recent project that it is touting as "Claude Code" for non-technical workers. It's also boasting that the model will have potential use in financial analysis, and it sure seems like the folks on Wall Street could use some help there. The general consensus among financial analysts this week is that Anthropic's Cowork models are spooking the stock market and playing a major factor in sending software stocks into a spiral. It's possible that this is what the market has been responding toâ€"after all, the initial release of DeepSeek, the open-source AI model out of China, tanked the AI sector for a day or so, so it's not like these markets aren't overly sensitive. But it seems unlikely that Opus 4.6 will fundamentally upend the market. Anthropic already holds a solid lead on the plurality of the enterprise market, according to a recent report from Menlo Ventures, and is well ahead of its top (publicly traded) competitors in the spaceâ€"though OpenAI made its own play to cut into some market share earlier today with the launch of its Frontier platform for managing AI agents. If anything, Anthropic's new model seems like it'll help the company maintain its top spot for the time being. But if the stock market shock is any indication, one thing is for sure: the entire economy is completely pot-committed to the developments in AI. Surely that won't have any repercussions.

Anthropic unveils latest AI model as OpenAI rivalry intensifies - The Economic Times

Anthropic on Thursday released its latest high-performing artificial intelligence model, escalating its challenge to OpenAI and Google in the intensifying AI race. Anthropic says its latest model, Claude Opus 4.6, represents a fundamental shift in how AI handles complex workplace tasks.Anthropic on Thursday released its latest high-performing artificial intelligence model, escalating its challenge to OpenAI and Google in the intensifying AI race. Founded by former OpenAI staffers in 2021, Anthropic has gained significant momentum in recent months with a series of product releases that have impressed Silicon Valley -- and rattled Wall Street. Releases including an AI automation tool and a legal field product contributed this week to a broad selloff in software stocks, as they exacerbated concerns that AI models can replace the utility of stand-alone business apps and platforms. While its archrival OpenAI targets consumers directly with the hugely popular ChatGPT, Anthropic appeals to computer coders and enterprises seeking AI products that prioritize data security and predictability alongside raw performance. Anthropic says its latest model, Claude Opus 4.6, represents a fundamental shift in how AI handles complex workplace tasks. The company highlighted use cases including financial modeling that synthesizes complicated regulatory filings and market data, plus document and presentation outputs that require minimal refinement. "Claude Opus 4.6 gets much closer to production-ready quality on the first try than what we've seen with any model," Anthropic said, adding that deliverables will require "less back-and-forth" to finalize. The launch caps a productive stretch of more than 30 product releases in recent months. In November, Claude Code -- a highly regarded coding tool -- surpassed $1 billion in revenue just six months after its public launch. However, that revenue comes with massive computing costs. Like OpenAI, Anthropic remains far from profitability. The rivalry between the two companies extends beyond technical features. Anthropic has publicly committed to keeping its Claude chatbot ad-free, calling advertisements "incongruous" with the personal nature of user conversations. This was in veiled contrast to OpenAI's decision to introduce ads to the non-premium portion of its roughly 800 million ChatGPT users, a move that critics say will create distrust for the technology. Anthropic relies instead on enterprise deals and paid subscriptions for revenue, a distinction it's highlighting in its first Super Bowl ad campaign airing this weekend. According to US media reports, Anthropic is planning a tender offer for its staff that would value the company at approximately $350 billion -- staggering growth for a four-year-old company but below OpenAI's reported target valuation of $800 billion in its next fundraising round. Both companies are widely rumored to be preparing for IPOs in the near future.

Anthropic releases AI upgrade as market punishes software stocks

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Technology startup Anthropic on Thursday launched what it called an improved artificial intelligence model, days after its product advances helped kick-start a selloff of traditional software stocks. The San Francisco-based lab, which is backed by Amazon.com and Alphabet's Google, said its Claude Opus 4.6 model is an upgrade to the Opus 4.5 model released in November. The new AI can work on tasks for longer and more reliably, while showing gains related to coding and finance, Anthropic said. Anthropic also teased how this tech could process 1 million pieces of data known as "tokens" in a single prompt, matching a capability earlier claimed by Google and a less powerful Claude model. And it previewed how this AI, in the computer programming tool Claude Code, could divvy up tasks among multiple autonomous agents and get work done faster. Seen as a disruptor in the software industry, Anthropic is aiming to stay at technology's frontier ahead of its highly anticipated initial public offering, at a time of competition from Google and OpenAI. Software developers have embraced its AI for coding. Anthropic is meanwhile making a push for business deals with products like Claude Cowork, which executes computer tasks for white-collar workers. The AI companies' swift deployments have stoked market moves that predict older software businesses will lose relevance as AI beats them at their own game. Shares of Salesforce, Workday and Thomson Reuters each traded around 3% lower Thursday, extending declines over the past week. Still, technology industry figures, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, have dismissed such concerns about disruption, arguing that the specialized products, vast data and AI adoption of older software companies will provide a moat. Scott White, Anthropic's head of product for enterprise, also said the goal was to connect AI to older software tools to make them more useful. "We are excited to partner and actually lower the floor to get more value out of those tools," White told Reuters. Claude Cowork, he said, is more like "the front door to getting hard work done." (Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)