Shares of customer relationship management and data software giant Salesforce, Inc. (CRM +3.19%) fell hard on Tuesday, down 5.8% as of 1:37 p.m. EDT.
There wasn't any company-specific news for Salesforce, but the entire enterprise software segment was down harshly today. This was likely due to a new update to Anthropic's agentic tool, which can now complete tasks on one's computer.
The fear is that AI companies like Anthropic may be able to build agents that can displace some or all of the functionality that enterprise software companies provide today.
NYSE: CRM
Key Data Points
Every Anthropic update seems to cause a software sell-off
Today, Anthropic released its new AI agent, which can operate a computer, including the mouse, keyboard, and screen, open apps, fill out spreadsheets, and complete other tasks. The new agent can be summoned remotely from a smartphone, essentially allowing one to remotely direct the agent to complete tasks while one is out and about. The new features are similar to Openclaw, the open-source AI agent that has gained popularity over the past several months.
The new capability builds on Anthropic's recent spate of innovations to Claude, its AI model, including Claude Code, which enables autonomous software coding; Claude Cowork, which was the first agentic capability on a computer released by Anthropic; and Claude Dispatch, which allows a continuous conversation with Claude from either a phone or a desktop.
With AI agents' ever-increasing capabilities, investors are wondering whether or not they may disrupt traditional software.
But Salesforce has partnered with and owns a stake in Anthropic
Things may not be as dire as they may seem for Salesforce, which tends to be fairly ingrained inside companies' data management and customer relationship systems. Moreover, Salesforce actually partnered with Anthropic as its primary model vendor, having announced the partnership back in October of last year.
Salesforce also owns about 1% of Anthropic, having invested in the company through Salesforce Ventures in 2023. While that would only amount to a value of $3.8 billion at Anthropic's current $380 billion valuation as of its most recent capital raise in February, it could grow to much more if Anthropic increasingly displaces enterprise software products en masse.
Salesforce has been the most aggressive software company in buying back stock over the past few months during this software bear market. In fact, the company just executed a massive $25 billion accelerated share repurchase in early March, but took on debt to do it. Whether that proves to be a good move is yet to be determined, and it may not be clear to investors for years as to whether Salesforce will be a winner or a loser in the AI era.
