Since February 2025, Anthropic has launched 13 vertical AI merchandise and has stopped constantly warning enterprise companions earlier than releasing instruments that compete with them.
The shift has hit design and enterprise software program corporations onerous. Figma is down about 50% 12 months to this point, elevating recent questions on how AI mannequin suppliers will coexist with the businesses constructing merchandise on high of their fashions.
The problem is acquainted in tech: a platform firm strikes up the stack and enters its clients’ market. What makes Anthropic totally different is the pace of the enlargement and the leverage it holds over the mannequin layer.
Anthropic strikes deeper into its clients’ markets
Anthropic launched Claude Code in February 2025 and saved increasing from there. By Could 2026, the corporate had added brokers for monetary companies, Claude for Authorized, and Claude for Small Enterprise, in response to PYMNTS.
Every product places Anthropic nearer to startups and conventional software program corporations which have constructed instruments round its fashions. These corporations now face a provider that may additionally grow to be a direct competitor.
Companions say the warning indicators are fading
Anthropic beforehand notified some purchasers earlier than launching merchandise that would compete with them. That apply is now much less constant, in response to The Info.
The report mentioned Anthropic doesn’t at all times inform companions earlier than getting into their markets. It additionally pointed to the corporate’s Mythos AI mannequin, which reportedly reduces efficiency when clients use it to construct competing AI software program or {hardware}.
For corporations that selected Anthropic as their basis mannequin supplier, that mixture narrows the runway. They don’t seem to be solely competing with Anthropic’s merchandise; they’re additionally depending on Anthropic’s infrastructure.
Figma turns into the clearest casualty
The market response was most seen on April 17, when Anthropic launched Claude Design, a conversational software powered by Claude Opus 4.7. The product can generate prototypes, slide decks, and advertising and marketing property from textual content prompts.
Figma shares fell 7.5% that day, closing at $18.84 from a previous shut of $20.32, in response to the Occasions of India. Adobe additionally dropped greater than 1%.
Three days earlier than the launch, Anthropic chief product officer Mike Krieger resigned from Figma’s board, a seat he had held for a couple of 12 months, The Info reported. Krieger has publicly argued that the most important AI labs will come to dominate software program companies, in response to SmarterX.
Figma has now fallen sharply from its 52-week excessive of $142.92, reached in August 2025, in response to AI Enterprise Weekly. The corporate went public in July 2025, with shares surging 250% on the primary day of buying and selling.
Lower than a 12 months later, it’s caught in what Wall Road has referred to as the “SaaSpocalypse,” a broader software program selloff that has wiped near $1 trillion from the sector in early 2026.
Platform danger returns, however with extra management
Platform corporations competing with their companions just isn’t new. Amazon Net Providers spent years assuring clients it might not transfer aggressively into application-layer software program, then launched companies that challenged corporations comparable to Elastic, MongoDB, and Datadog.
Apple’s annual developer convention has lengthy carried the specter of “Sherlocking,” a time period coined after Apple copied key options from Watson, a preferred third-party search software, and constructed related performance into macOS. Google has additionally displaced companions by bundling maps, e mail, and productiveness instruments into its personal ecosystem.
The AI growth provides a extra severe twist. Mannequin suppliers don’t simply management distribution or entry to an app retailer. They management the inference layer.
This gives Anthropic with a a lot increased diploma of management than early platform corporations loved. A mannequin could be degraded with respect to particular aggressive use circumstances; thus, the platform supplier can degrade the underlying know-how that types the accomplice’s product.
Software program corporations search for methods across the menace
Primarily based on The Info, companies which will really feel the warmth from Anthropic’s enlargement fall into one in all three classes. They’re creating extra specialised merchandise for various sectors, emphasizing the compliance and observability options {that a} generic AI system lacks, and permitting customers to pick their most well-liked AI fashions.
This final level may be essentially the most essential. In Feb of ’26, Figma themselves partnered with Anthropic on “Code to Canvas”-an integration that “transforms Claude Code responses into Figma designs,” AI Enterprise Weekly studies.
It demonstrates the issue software program companies are in. They need to combine with frontier AIs in an effort to maintain their product related even when they danger killing their enterprise themselves by integrating with these AIs.
AI uncertainty freezes software program dealmaking
The strain can be displaying up in software program mergers and acquisitions. Software program deal exercise fell to $50 billion within the first 5 months of 2026, down from $88 billion throughout the identical interval final 12 months, in response to PYMNTS. That marks the bottom January-to-Could deal quantity because the pandemic period.
PYMNTS cited trade executives who mentioned patrons are struggling to worth software program corporations whereas AI reshapes the sector. The priority is easy: many software program companies is probably not as defensible if mannequin suppliers can construct related merchandise quicker and cheaper.
For Anthropic, the transfer into vertical software program makes enterprise sense. Promoting full merchandise can supply higher margins than promoting API entry, particularly as the corporate works to develop income earlier than a attainable IPO.
For the software program corporations that constructed on Anthropic’s fashions, the equation has modified. Their platform supplier is not only a provider. It’s changing into a competitor.
