Software Stocks Plummet to Multi-Year Lows Amid Anthropic's AI Surge

Software stocks continue to face pressure despite a de-escalation in the Middle East war. Shares of Salesforce, Inc., Snowflake, Inc., and Workday, Inc. plummeted to fresh multi-year lows on Thursday.

The decline was triggered by new AI announcements from Anthropic, which has been steadily adding capabilities that overlap with software solutions already in the market. Its Cowork platform is designed to integrate AI into enterprise workflows, enabling shared context, documents, and real-time collaboration around AI outputs.

Anthropic's AI tools have fanned worries that they might impact demand for certain niche software. This concern has been exacerbated by a string of AI launches from the company, leading to intense selling pressure in software stocks.