Bhaijaan
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Investors around the world woke up to a wave of selling in technology, software and IT stocks after Anthropic, the U.S. AI developer behind the Claude family of AI models, rolled out a suite of new AI automation tools and plugins — especially ones capable of handling legal, analytics, marketing and data tasks traditionally sold by software firms and service providers.
The fear? These tools could accelerate automation and reduce demand for traditional enterprise software and outsourcing services, stretching well beyond typical AI efficiency gains and into substantive competitive disruption.
- U.S. and global software stocks slid sharply, erasing hundreds of billions in combined value.
- European data, analytics, and publishing groups also slumped, deepening the rout.
- Asian markets joined the sell-off, with major tech indices and IT services exporters sinking as fears spread that automation could cut into staffing-heavy business models.
Investors shifted from seeing AI as a productivity boost to worrying about it as a replacement threat. That’s a structural re-pricing of risk for software and IT sectors that rely heavily on human labor, subscriptions, and recurring services.
- Oracle: 4.2% ↓
- Adobe: 2.6% ↓
- Salesforce: 3.3% ↓
- Thomson Reuters: 2.4% ↓
- Atlassian: 3% ↓
- LegalZoom.com: 3.3% ↓
- Equifax: 3.8% ↓
- Intuit: 4.8% ↓
- HubSpot: 6% ↓
- RELX Plc (LexisNexis): ~10% ↓ or more in some reports
- Wolters Kluwer: ~10% ↓
- Nomura Research Institute (Japan): ~7.6% ↓
- Infosys: ~7.3% ↓
- Tata Consultancy Services (TCS): ~5.8% ↓
- HCL Technologies: ~5.1% ↓
- Wipro: ~3.9% ↓
- Tech Mahindra: ~5.1% ↓
- Persistent Systems: ~6–7.5% ↓
- LTIMindtree: ~6–7.6% ↓
- Coforge: ~5.8% ↓
- Mphasis: ~4.8–7% ↓
- Nifty IT index: Down ~5.9% to 6.3% — worst in years.
- Nasdaq Composite & tech indices: saw tech-heavy weakness (Nasdaq down ~1.4%).
This sell-off signals more than just a short-term stock wobble. It reflects a shift in investor psychology: markets are now pricing in potential structural disruption from AI, not just efficiency gains. Whether this is temporary fear or the start of a deeper reconfiguration of the software and IT services landscape will unfold in the coming weeks. Analysts now speak both of caution and of a future where firms that adapt to AI-first models could outperform those that cling too tightly to legacy business models.
US software stocks hit by Anthropic wake-up call on AI disruption
U.S. software stocks extended their slide on Wednesday, driven by fears of disruption caused by artificial intelligence, with some analysts warning of more volatility as investors assess whether the challenge is existential for the sector.