TLDR
- Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.6 on Thursday, its most advanced AI model for enterprise and knowledge work
- The launch caused major stock drops: FactSet fell 9.1%, S&P Global dropped 4.2%, and Salesforce declined 25% year-to-date
- Opus 4.6 tops benchmarks against OpenAI’s GPT-5.2 and Google’s Gemini 3 Pro, ranking first on Finance Agent benchmark
- The model can complete coding projects in hours instead of days and analyze financial data including regulatory filings
- Anthropic will run a Super Bowl ad on Sunday that criticizes OpenAI’s decision to sell advertising
Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.6 on Thursday afternoon, triggering immediate sell-offs across financial services and software companies. The AI company called the new model its “most capable model for all enterprise and knowledge work.”
Financial data stocks took the hardest hit from the announcement. FactSet Research Systems shares dropped 9.1% on Thursday. Credit-rating agencies S&P Global and Moody’s fell 4.2% and 3.3% respectively.
Nasdaq declined 3.7% following the news. The exchange operator also provides financial data services. Software companies that already faced pressure in 2025 saw further declines.
Salesforce stock has fallen 25% since the start of the year. SAP shares have dropped 18% over the same period. Intuit and Thomson Reuters have plummeted 32% and 30% respectively.
The WisdomTree Cloud Computing Fund has fallen more than 20% year-to-date. Investors worry that AI platforms like Claude will replace traditional software-as-a-service offerings. Enterprise customers make up roughly 80% of Anthropic’s business, according to CEO Dario Amodei.
Technical Capabilities and Performance
Opus 4.6 improves on the coding capabilities of its predecessor, Claude Opus 4.5. The model can conduct research and create documents and files. Anthropic claims it produces results closer to “production-ready quality” on its first attempt.
The company said this means fewer back-and-forth changes to documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Based on Anthropic’s benchmarks, Opus 4.6 beats OpenAI’s GPT-5.2 and Google’s Gemini 3 Pro. The model achieved the top position on the Finance Agent benchmark for financial analyst tasks.
For AI agents, Opus 4.6 can work across dozens of tools as part of a single task. The system addresses errors as it goes. It can analyze financial data including regulatory filings, market reports, and internal data.
The model excels at planning, code review, and debugging within large codebases. It can pull relevant information from large document sets. For coding work, Opus 4.6 can complete development projects in hours that would normally take days.
Enterprise Integration and Market Competition
Claude is coming to Microsoft PowerPoint as part of a research preview. The feature allows users to create presentations using prompts. Anthropic already integrates with Microsoft apps like SharePoint, OneDrive, Outlook, and Teams.
The release comes days after Anthropic revealed enterprise-focused plugins for Claude Cowork. These plugins handle tasks ranging from productivity to legal, sales, and marketing work. Scott White, Anthropic’s head of product for enterprise, described the shift in how people work with AI.
“If I think about the last year, Claude went from a model that you can sort of talk to to accomplish a very small task or get an answer, to something that you can actually hand real work to,” White said. The launch also came hours after OpenAI announced its new Frontier platform.
OpenAI’s platform allows customers to deploy AI agents that interact with existing software systems. The timing highlights the fierce competition between the two AI companies. Anthropic has made enterprise work and coding two of its key business drivers.
Anthropic will run an ad during the Super Bowl on Sunday. The ad criticizes OpenAI for its decision to sell advertising to generate revenue. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded on X, calling the ad deceptive.
Altman said his company has more users in Texas alone than all of Anthropic’s users combined. Users can access Claude Opus 4.6 at claude.ai, through the company’s API, and across major cloud platforms.
