By Pia Singh
Publication Date: 2026-02-23 19:30:00
International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) signage on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Monday, Dec. 8, 2025.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
International Business Machines stock is getting slammed, becoming the latest victim of rapidly developing AI technology, after Anthropic’s Claude announced COBOL capabilities.
Shares of IBM fell 11% in Monday afternoon trading after Anthropic outlined a new use case for its Claude Code product: automating the exploration and analysis work that drives most of the complexity in COBOL modernization.
COBOL, short for Common Business-Oriented Language, is a decades-old programming language used widely in business data processing, which is a core business area for IBM. COBOL continues to power systems responsible for large volumes of transactions, including payment processing and retail transaction systems, making it a prime target for cost-efficient AI disruption.
In a Monday blog post, Anthropic wrote…