Catenaa, Tuesday, February 24, 2026- US software stocks that entered into partnerships with AI startup Anthropic on Tuesday helped lead a rebound in the sector that has been hammered by fears about the disruptive impact of AI.
Anthropic said it was developing new tools, the so-called “plug-ins”, with its partners that could help with investment banking, wealth management, and HR tasks, including deal reviews, portfolio analysis, and making new-hire materials reflect a brand’s tone and policies.
Shares of its partners, including LSEG, FactSet, Salesforce’s Slack, and DocuSign, climbed between 0.4% and 5.3%.
The S&P 500 software & services index also rose 1.4% , and the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF jumped 2.4%.
The software index touched a 10-month low on Monday after Citrini Research laid out a 2028 scenario where unemployment rises to 10.2%, triggered by layoffs as AI rapidly turfs out software and delivery applications.
A week-long selloff earlier this month wiped out about $1 trillion in market value on Wall Street that analysts dubbed ‘Software-mageddon’ and hurt sectors spanning from software to logistics companies on both sides of the Atlantic and India.
Anthropic said on Monday its Claude Code tool could be used to modernize a programming language run on IBM systems, resulting in the biggest daily drop in shares of the legacy company in more than 25 years. IBM shares were up 3.5% on Tuesday.
Tax-preparation software Intuit gained 2.8% and AI-solutions provider Intapp climbed 7.1% after the companies announced separate partnerships with Anthropic on Tuesday.
