Anthropic unveils enterprise push as anthropic expands Claude plugins
Anthropic on Tuesday unveiled a host of new enterprise capabilities for its Claude AI, less than a month after the company launched plugins for the platform. Investors reacted as anthropic expanded Claude's integrations and plugin tools, a push that has contributed to a sharp market response for established software firms.
Anthropic's enterprise features
Anthropic (ANTH. PVT) said the updated features include plugins designed for specific departments within an organization, such as human resources and investment banking; allow customers to create customized plugins tailored to specific company tasks; and connect Claude to existing software, including Google's (GOOG, GOOGL) Drive and Gmail, DocuSign (DOCU), and LegalZoom (LZ). The announcement came on Tuesday, and the company noted the work followed a plugins launch less than a month earlier.
How plugins and marketplaces work
Matt Piccolella, who works on products at Anthropic, explained the company's view of plugins and enterprise adoption. "We think that the best way to drive enterprise AI adoption is to build dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of these plugins … We think of them almost as mini apps, " Piccolella said. He added: "We think that enterprises will be able to build hundreds of these things and then distribute them to their employees. " Piccolella also said: "So whether it's each department wanting its own plugin, whether it's different kinds of workflows or different things that companies are doing, they can build plugins for those that are custom to their company. "
Piccolella said Anthropic is also offering a marketplace for enterprises to host their own plugins that employees and teams can use to find the right plugins for their teams and needs.
Market reaction and stock declines
Anthropic's deeper push into the enterprise space is sure to amplify fears on Wall Street that the company's products will eventually displace existing software companies. The announcements have put enormous pressure on shares of enterprise software developers: ServiceNow (NOW) stock is off more than 23% since Anthropic initially announced Claude Cowork on Jan. 30; Salesforce (CRM) is down 22%; Snowflake (SNOW) has dropped 20%; Intuit (INTU) has fallen 33%; and Thomson (TRI) has declined a whopping 31%.
Claude Code Security and cybersecurity moves
On Feb. 20, Anthropic announced Claude Code Security, which it said "scans codebases for security vulnerabilities and suggests targeted software patches for human review. " That announcement sent cybersecurity stocks lower: CrowdStrike (CRWD) and Zscaler (ZS) fell 7. 2% and 7. 1%, respectively, as of Monday's close, while Palo Alto Networks (PANW) dropped 2. 6%.
Competition with OpenAI and analysts' perspective
The thinking described in the announcement and surrounding commentary is that Anthropic, OpenAI (OPAI. PVT), and other AI companies will either build their own software to rival offerings from established software firms or allow businesses to easily develop custom in-house software. OpenAI launched its Frontier platform earlier this month, enabling users to build and launch AI agents that work with a company's existing software services.
Analysts cited in the context note that open-source software that companies can use to build their own custom enterprise offerings has been available for decades, yet the market for third-party software has only expanded in that time. They also cast doubt on AI companies' ability to steal market share from dedicated enterprise software companies that are purpose-built for certain tasks.
Daniel Howley is named in the original context as the author of the reporting referenced in the material provided.
Closing: Anthropic's announcements—new plugins, a plugin marketplace, expanded integrations and Claude Code Security—have intensified debate over AI's impact on enterprise software and coincided with notable declines in both software and cybersecurity equities.
