Anthropic's enterprise move - moves markets
When the tide goes out, you see who's got their trunks on - Warren Buffett [paraphrased], 1995 AGM .
The recent run on software stocks may be an over-reaction given fundamentals haven’t changed overnight - nonetheless, there’s signal in the noise. AI capabilities are maturing to the point they can be widely deployed.
The tide turned last week with Anthropic’s release of Opus 4.6 and plugins for Claude Co-work. Their “Agentic Teams” capability showcases automation of complex cognitive tasks, while free legal and finance plugins automate activities currently carried out by staff or incumbent software.
That’s the realisation of Anthropic’s canny strategy to unlock enterprise value through deployable tooling.
The aim is to replace human capital by automating end to end workflows, not just earn a slice of the licensing budget. This novel threat dries out many of the moats defending software platforms for decades - nonetheless vendors have other defences.
So who’s got their trunks on?
Owning the customer relationship with proximity to value realisation remains a strong defence. AI commoditises capability not responsibility, platforms closest to regulated decisions, audits, payments or outcomes, retain leverage.
In its current incarnation AI is a chancer, inferring the most likely answer rather than consistently calculating from pre-agreed rules. For some specific applications this is more a definitive boundary than surmountable barrier - inference != authority. Claude’s legal review “must be reviewed by a lawyer”.
Disruptive as AI is, we shouldn’t underestimate the geological time-scales in which enterprises move, or the ability of vendors to adapt and exploit their advantage.
RELX, previously the paper publisher Reed Elsevier, suffered one of the biggest losses last week losing 17% of its value. In 1995 Forbes predicted it would be the first casualty of the internet age. It pivoted to digital and today paper publications are just 4% of revenue.
Nonetheless, it’s time to throw out the rule book, challenge strategic dogma and exploit a new competitive landscape.
Or prompt Claude for a new strategy deck.