I don't get the need to have Anthropic build their custom versions of MS Office apps, I can tell Claude to generate a word doc from a wiki page and it does a pretty damn good job. Anthropic's statistical median level of software that they had Claude create isn't going to replace Office apps to the point where companies cancel/stop renewing their MS Office subscriptions/licenses.
The other element is trust. Do end users trust their data in Anthropic's systems? A lot of people get creeped out when they search for content from one device in their household and then nearly instantaneously they start seeing ads from other devices on the same topic. How creepy will AI get if it starts consuming all your docs, spreadsheets, personal finance info, emails, etc.?
This argument doesn't hold water. Google tried like no one else to have a chat app and it failed miserably more than a handful of times. Same for social networks.
They need to leverage Claude Code in the software industry to position themselves as the go-to platform for businesses.
Meanwhile, Google and Microsoft, which already dominate that area, seem to be dormant.
Additionally, the gateway allows for caching, additional security checks, centralized monitoring. I think most corporations have a multi-provider setup anyway.
The thing that I'm less clear on is, if and when they achieve some kind of recursive improvement exponential growth thingy, isn't that going to heavily disrupt the entire economy / stock market? In that environment, would Anthropic's stocks really be a good bet, given they have to operate within the economy?
That's a long-term problem to be dealt with later, greed dictates to pursue the former as long as the music is playing and everyone is dancing. Similar to 2007-2008 when it was clear that things were breaking but the incentives were to play the game for as long as possible before it imploded.
It is a myth. They are chasing science fiction. They either dream of an omniscient overseer who will take control of society and nominate its shareholders-parents into the governing elite, or they envision a chatbot that will solve every problem, again turning shareholders into the power brokers. They forget that nobody will ever be allowed to "win capitalism" and take over the planet. Companies have are torn down for far far less. Every AI model is data, ones and zeros. It therefore can be copied/shared/leaked. Intellectual Property law is not a ladder for assent to lordship. It can and will be rewritten or outright ignored rather than allow capitalism to collapse.
I think that at this point gAI is just a marketing blurb, and the actual race is to dominate current practical applications involving basic RAG and ReAct loops. This can go from anything between software development, business intelligence, and market research. A company whose top brass can use a team of agents to do what nowadays they assign to mid- and top-level management is an executive with tighter control over the whole business process. For this you don't need gAI.