The new AI automation tool from Anthropic triggered a drop in the market capitalization of companies totaling $285 billion within a day.
Companies operating in the software, financial and legal information services, and asset management sectors have been caught in the sell-off, Bloomberg reports.
This panic was triggered by the release of a legal tool from Anthropic that automates tasks for which large software and data companies are currently being paid: contract analysis and the preparation of legal briefs.
This is not the only automation tool for routine work for lawyers on the market, but specialized startups like Legora and Harvey AI depend on developers of foundational AI models, whereas Anthropic is itself such a developer, giving it unique advantages over competitors.
Another release from Anthropic – the Claude Cowork tool – heightened investor concerns in January about the software sector's vulnerability to risks posed by artificial intelligence, and last week, shares of gaming companies were hit after Alphabet began rolling out Project Genie – a tool capable of creating 3D worlds based on text or visual prompts.
All of this has led to the S&P North American software producers index beginning to decline at a pace not seen since the global financial crisis of 2008.
"We call it the SaaSpocalypse – an apocalypse for the stocks of software-as-a-service companies," Bloomberg quotes one trader from investment bank Jefferies.
