After Anthropic launched the COBOL AI tool, IBM's stock price plummeted by 10%

2026-02-23 19:24:13

Abstract generation in progress

Investing.com - IBM (NYSE:IBM) stock touched its intraday low on Monday afternoon, falling 10%, after Anthropic announced the launch of an AI tool aimed at simplifying COBOL code modernization. Accenture (NYSE:ACN) and Cognizant Technology Solutions (NASDAQ:CTSH) also declined following the announcement.

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These three technology consulting firms were already in a downturn due to the overall weakness in the tech sector when Anthropic made its announcement. IBM, Accenture, and Cognizant all have large-scale legacy system modernization businesses, generating revenue by helping organizations update COBOL systems from decades ago.

Anthropic’s new tool, Claude Code, can automate the exploration and analysis phases of COBOL modernization, tasks traditionally requiring large consulting teams. According to the company, this AI tool can map dependencies between thousands of lines of code, document workflows, and identify risks that typically take human analysts months to discover.

COBOL remains widely used, estimated to handle 95% of ATM transactions in the United States. Thousands of billions of lines of COBOL code run in production daily, supporting critical systems in finance, aviation, and government sectors. However, as most of the workforce building these systems has retired, the number of developers who understand this programming language continues to decline.

Anthropic states that Claude Code can help teams modernize COBOL codebases within a few quarters rather than years by automating code analysis and implementation tasks. The tool can identify program entry points, trace execution paths, map data flows between modules, and record dependencies across hundreds of files.

The company notes that legacy code modernization has previously stalled because the cost of understanding legacy code exceeded that of rewriting it, but AI has changed this equation. Anthropic released the “Code Modernization Manual” simultaneously with the tool on February 23, 2026.

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