Markets had their worst software selloff in years on Monday, erasing $285 billion in market value, after Anthropic released plugins that let its Claude AI handle legal contracts, sales research, and financial analysis without human supervision.
The storm hit everything from legacy software giants to Indian outsourcers. Thomson Reuters lost $8.2 billion in a single day, its steepest drop ever. Infosys fell 8%, TCS 6%, and the Nifty IT index shed Rs 1.9 lakh crore, dropping below Rs 30 lakh crore for the first time in months.
What tensed investors wasn’t the technology itself. It was realising that companies might soon pay for one AI agent instead of ten software licenses, or a hundred consulting hours.
