IBM Stock Tanks 12% After Anthropic Shows AI Can Tackle COBOL
Anthropic's Claude Code demonstrated automated COBOL modernization capabilities, sending IBM shares into freefall.
IBM got absolutely hammered on Monday, with shares plunging more than 12% after Anthropic dropped a blog post nobody at Big Blue wanted to see.
The culprit? Anthropic detailed how Claude Code can automate the exploration and analysis phases of COBOL modernization — the exact kind of legacy enterprise work that's been IBM's bread and butter for decades.
COBOL, the ancient programming language still running critical systems at banks and governments worldwide, represents a massive consulting and services revenue stream for IBM. The prospect of AI tooling that can handle the tedious analysis work of modernizing these codebases threatens to undercut that business significantly.
IBM is now the latest major tech incumbent to feel the heat from rapidly advancing AI capabilities eating into established service lines. Wall Street's message was clear: if AI can do it cheaper, investors will reprice accordingly.