IBM and Anthropic are partnering to integrate the chatbot maker’s LLMs into IBM’s software portfolio.
Claude will be integrated into select IBM software products “to deliver measurable productivity gains, while building security, governance, and cost controls directly into the lifecycle of software development,” the company said.
The first product will be IBM’s new AI-first integrated development environment (IDE) and will be available to select IBM clients. Early testing is revealing productivity gains averaging 45%, while maintaining code quality and security standards, IBM said.
Automating the SDLC
The partnership is “giving development teams AI that fits how enterprises work, not experimental tools that create new risks,’’ said Dinesh Nirmal, senior vice president of Software at IBM, in a statement.
Mike Krieger, chief product officer at Anthropic, added that developers use Claude as their “go-to AI” because of the company’s focus on safety and reliability.
The goal is to make developers more productive by automating various tasks in the software development lifecycle. According to IBM, these include:
- Modernizing applications at scale through automated system upgrades, framework migrations, and multi-step refactoring with context-awareness across large-scale codebases.
- Generating and reviewing code with AI assistance that understands enterprise architecture patterns, security requirements, and compliance obligations.
- Modernizing end-to-end orchestration from initial development through testing, deployment, and maintenance, as well as remediation tasks, while maintaining context across sessions.
- Deploying a security-first development mindset by embedding security into workflows, enabling “shift-left” vulnerability scans, expedited FedRAMP hardening, and facilitating quantum-safe cryptographic migration.
An ADLC guide on AI agents with MCP servers
As part of the partnership, IBM has released Architecting Secure Enterprise AI Agents with MCP, a guide verified by Anthropic on the agent development lifecycle that provides its approach to designing, deploying, and managing enterprise AI agents.
Claude may also be integrated into other IBM products, the company said.
A win-win for both companies
The terms of the deal were not disclosed. On Tuesday, IBM’s stock rose nearly 4% to $300 following the news, and is on track to close at a record high.
High-profile partnerships such as this one increase IBM’s visibility and credibility, and can indicate to investors that IBM is “proactively driving innovation,” Brianne Lynch, head of market insight at financial marketplace EquityZen, said.
Meanwhile, in a continued push into the enterprise space, Anthropic on Monday announced a partnership with Deloitte to roll out Claude to the consulting giant’s 470,000 global employee workforce.
Anthropic recently said AI reached a turning point in cybersecurity, as its Claude Sonnet 4.5 model can now detect, analyze, and patch software flaws that were previously handled only by human experts.