Frightful February for IT stocks: How Anthropic’s 6 AI tools sparked a multi-billion dollar meltdown in 4 weeks

Indian IT stocks have recorded a significant decline so far in February, as new launches and comments from AI startup Anthropic spooked investors about the possibility of a disruption in the sector.

The Nifty IT index has plunged 21% so far this month, after recording marginal gains in January. Here is a timeline of events leading to the massive single-day declines in the sector.

February 4: The IT rout begins on Dalal Street

After Anthropic launched plug-ins for its Claude Cowork agent which could automate tasks across legal, sales, marketing and data analysis, Wall Street ended sharply lower on February 3. This came as investors remained concerned that AI was creating more competition for software makers.

The tech selloff spilled over to Dalal Street the next day, with Nifty IT index crashing 6% as heavyweights like Infosys, Tech Mahindra, LTI Mindtree, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and others fell up to 8% on February 4.

"We call it the ‘SaaSpocalypse,’ an apocalypse for software-as-a-service stocks," Bloomberg quoted Jeffrey Favuzza from the equity trading desk at Jefferies as saying.

February 6: IT rout continues

The Nifty IT index declined around 1.5% on February 6 after Anthropic unveiled Claude Opus 4.6. The new version of the AI startup’s flagship model is designed to handle complex financial research and a wide range of enterprise tasks that would normally take days for humans to complete.

On this day, the index extended its decline for the third consecutive session, falling as much as 8% during the losing streak.

February 12-13: Anthropic makes Claude Enterprise more accessible

The Nifty IT index tumbled 5.5%, accompanying Wall Street peers after a better-than-expected US January jobs report failed to boost investor sentiment amid concerns around AI-led disruptions. Later on February 13, the index dropped another 1.4% after Anthropic announced that any organization could purchase Claude Enterprise directly on its website with no sales conversation required.

February 18: Anthropic's new versions of web search, web fetch tools

IT stocks declined again sharply on February 18, with Nifty IT index falling over 1% after Anthropic released new versions of its web search and web fetch tools. “Claude can now natively write and execute code during web searches to filter results before they reach the context window, improving its accuracy and token efficiency,” it said.

February 23: Improvements to Claude code

Anthropic on February 20 introduced changes to its Claude code to let customers preview running apps, auto-review code, auto-fix and merge PRs, and easily switch between desktop, mobile and CLI. “Together these updates help you spend less time on the toil around code and more time on the parts you enjoy,” the AI startup said.

As a result, the Nifty IT index fell more than 1.4% to close at 31,550.5 on February 23.

February 24: Anthropic says Claude can modernise COBOL

The Indian IT stocks again crashed yesterday, February 24, tracking global peers. Shares of International Business Machines (IBM) plunged more than 13% on Monday, recording their steepest single-day drop in over 25 years. This came after AI startup Anthropic said its Claude Code tool could modernise a legacy ‌programming language that runs on IBM systems.

"Modernising a COBOL system once required armies of consultants spending ⁠years mapping ‌workflows. Tools like Claude Code can automate the exploration and analysis phases ⁠that consume most of the effort in COBOL modernisation," Anthropic said in a blog post on Monday.

The Nifty IT index tumbled nearly 5% to close at 30,053 on Tuesday.

The IT stocks have recorded some gains on Wednesday, with Nifty IT closing 1.57% higher. However, the index is still down around 21% in one month.

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