Wall Street’s Doom-Mongering on Software Is Bizarre
Anthropic will not become a one-stop-shop for every software need.
Photographer: Riccardo Milani/AFP/Getty Images
Just four paragraphs on the website of Anthropic PBC were enough to spark a $300 billion stock rout. A Jefferies analyst called it the “SaaSpocalypse,” a run on the shares of specialized software companies that Wall Street thinks are vulnerable to a one-stop-shop AI tool.
Anthropic, known for its Claude bot, quietly announced a plug-in for its Cowork feature that could “speed up contract review, NDA triage, and compliance workflows for in-house legal teams.” That was the catalyst for software stocks being dumped across the board on Tuesday, the news apparently confirming long-simmering fears that even if these software companies aren’t eradicated, their profit margins are in for a beating.