IBM Stocks Plummet as Anthropic's Claude Tool Threatens COBOL Business

IBM's stock price plummeted by 13.2% on Monday, its worst single-day performance since October 2000, following the release of new Claude functionality by Anthropic.

The tool can modernize COBOL code faster at scale, a development that threatens IBM's business in providing tools and consulting services to help banks and other enterprises gradually modernize or integrate their COBOL-based systems.

IBM defended its position, stating that 'new AI tools emerge every week, including our own,' but emphasized that the fundamental engineering challenge of running mission-critical workloads at scale remains unchanged.

The company highlighted its own technological strengths and investments in code modernization through skilling initiatives and generative AI tools such as the Watsonx Code Assistant for Z launched two years ago.