Claude Had a Week
The week AI put the software market on notice
First, happy post-Super Bowl PTO day to all who celebrate.
We were not planning on continuing our coverage of AI adoption this week, but then Claude went crazy and blew up the markets in the process.
In case you missed it, Anthropic’s latest updates, including expanded Claude Cowork capabilities and deeper interaction with everyday work tools, signaled a shift many have been predicting for months. It undoubtedly proved that AI is can be the interface, the workflow, and increasingly, the platform.
In short, Cowork operates across files, systems, and multi-step tasks. Suddenly, entire categories of paid software start to look optional.
The market reacted accordingly. Software, data, and professional-services stocks in both the U.S. and Europe sold off sharply, as investors absorbed what this means for seat-based SaaS models and “visibility premium” platforms.
We tested it ourselves. Using Claude Cowork, we’ve already built:
· a lightweight project management tool
· a functional CRM
In a traditional setup, those would be separate paid platforms, each with onboarding, admin overhead, and renewal cycles. Here, they’re workflows. Good enough, flexible, and owned by an operator rather than the vendor.
That’s the shift leaders should pay attention to. AI doesn’t just automate tasks. It collapses categories.
Of course, this has us immediately thinking about what this means for the workforce. The signal is getting harder to ignore.
Over the past week alone, major companies announced large workforce reductions:
· UPS: 30,000 roles
· Amazon: 16,000
· Dow Chemical: 4,500
· Pinterest: nearly 1,000
· OpenAI: dramatically slowing hiring
The big picture:
· 1.2 million job cuts were announced overall in 2025, the highest since the pandemic
· Entry-level job postings are down 35% in two years, and 67% in tech
· More than two-thirds of enterprises report slowing entry-level hiring
· Several large employers have publicly committed to keeping headcount flat
You can debate how much of this is “because of AI.” What matters is that AI is now a credible justification for headcount decisions, and that changes organizational behavior.
Put these threads together and we see an undeniable a pattern emerging.
When AI becomes the interface, software becomes optional.
When software becomes optional, teams shrink the stack.
When the stack shrinks, roles tied to maintaining it compress.
We are moving from “tools that support teams” to “operators who replace layers.” It’s not going to be immediate because, candidly, so many organizations aren’t paying attention. But it’s fast enough that the gap between organizations that can truly operate AI and those that can’t will show up in cost, speed, and output quality.
That’s why AI adoption is so critical.
So, back to last week’s newsletter: it’s all about leadership.
Leaders need to create three conditions quickly:
1. Safety: AI learning must feel developmental, not evaluative.
2. Ownership: adoption cannot live in a task force, it has to live in leadership routines.
3. Clarity: people need to know where AI is expected, where it’s discouraged, and what “good” looks like.
With that AI becomes leverage. Skip it, and you’ll still be paying for tools you don’t need while competitors quietly rebuild their own operating model.
Links
Anthropic’s new AI tools deepen selloff in data analytics and software stocks, investors say
“AI developer Anthropic launched plug-ins for its Claude Cowork agent on Friday that would automate tasks across legal, sales, marketing and data analysis.”
SaaSpocalypse Now? AI Is Disrupting SaaS — But Not All Software Is Doomed
This Is Why It’s So Hard to Find a Job Right Now
“A ‘deep freeze’ has enveloped the U.S. labor market. A whole bunch of factors are at play.”
What Photographers Saw In The Super Bowl Archives
How Miss Piggy Went From Minor Muppet to TV’s Top Hog
SpeedStudio Podcast:
Ep. 126 – Maggie Coles-Lyster, Pro Cyclist, Human Powered Health
On this week’s episode, we have former Canadian National Champion, Olympian, and world tour cyclist Maggie Coles-Lyster on the podcast. We discuss her big win at the Tour Down Under, her fightback after battling a career-changing injury, current racing schedule at the Tour of UAE, and her plans for Flanders, Roubaix and more exciting races. Welcome to our new Canadian listeners!