![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0x0-1-3.webp.jpeg\")
The Amazon- and Google-backed AI startup said its latest tool would make it easier to update decades-old business software.Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPublished on\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFebruary 24, 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
IBM\u2019s stock stumbled on Monday to its largest single-day loss since the dot-com bubble burst, after Anthropic announced an AI tool it claimed would streamline updates for a decades-old business software, the latest development in recent weeks from Anthropic to fuel a stock selloff.<\/p>\n
The Amazon- and Google-backed AI startup said its latest tool would make it easier to update decades-old business software.
Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n
Key Takeaways<\/p>\n
Shares of IBM plunged 13.1% to $223.39 as trading closed Monday, marking the stock\u2019s largest single-day loss since October 2000 (15.5%).<\/p>\n
Anthropic, in a blog post<\/a> on Monday, announced a tool for its Claude Code that would help modernize COBOL code, a programming language developed in the 1960s that processes about 95%<\/a> of ATM transactions in the U.S., while also handling Social Security payments and other systems used by financial and airline firms, among others.<\/p>\n IBM helped popularize<\/a> COBOL and still provides systems that run it, but Anthropic argued the language is taught by only a \u201chandful\u201d of universities, and finding engineers who can read it \u201cgets harder and harder every quarter.\u201d<\/p>\n Anthropic said that, despite \u201chundreds of billions\u201d of lines of COBOL run in production every day, the number of people who understand it \u201cshrinks every year,\u201d arguing AI would quickly modernize the legacy code.<\/p>\n Big Number<\/p>\n $31 billion. That\u2019s about how much was cut from IBM\u2019s market value after its shares declined on Monday, falling from $240.8 billion on Friday to roughly $208.7 billion.<\/p>\n Key Background<\/p>\n Anthropic has unveiled a slew of updates for its AI tools this month, fueling selloffs across several industries. The Google- and Amazon-backed AI startup announced plugins for its Claude Cowork AI agent that Anthropic claimed could automate tasks for customer service, product management, marketing, legal and data analysis, among others, while also generating financial statements, researching sales prospects and helping prepare for sales calls. That helped spread concerns that AI could soon threaten common business processes, while also sending global software stocks down. Another tool released by Anthropic last week sparked a selloff for cybersecurity stocks, including CrowdStrike and Zscaler, which fell about 9% each on Monday, after the company said its tool could scan software code for vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n Contra<\/p>\n Several economists have warned that investors may be overreacting to recent developments in AI. LPL Financial analyst Adam Turnquist wrote last week that volatility across software and AI-exposed industries reflected a \u201cmarket narrative\u201d shift among investors and not because revenue or profits declined. JPMorgan earlier this month said<\/a> the view that AI companies would disrupt the software industry was \u201cbroken logic\u201d and that investor concern was overblown, while WedBush Securities analyst Dan Ives told CNBC<\/a> a broader selloff for software stocks was the \u201cmost disconnected trade I\u2019ve ever seen in my career on Wall Street.\u201d Ives argued that AI developments would instead boost companies.<\/p>\n Want to see more Forbes articles on your feed?\u00a0Tap here to make Forbes Australia a preferred source on Google.<\/a><\/p>\n Look back on the week that was with hand-picked articles from Australia and around the world.\u00a0Sign up to the Forbes Australia newsletter here<\/a>or\u00a0become a member here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published on February 24, 2026 IBM\u2019s stock stumbled on Monday to its largest single-day loss since the dot-com…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,2729,254,255,64,63,13435,5476,105],"class_list":["post-501621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-anthropic","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ibm","tag-investing","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}