Google CEO Sundar Pichai isn’t buying the panic. During the company’s earnings call, Pichai pushed back against the market hysteria triggered by Anthropic’s new AI plugins, calling it overblown. AI is “an enabling tool,” he said, just as it has been for Google‘s own products—Search, YouTube and others. Companies “seizing the moment” will find the same opportunity ahead, he added.His comments come as software stocks worldwide nurse heavy losses. Anthropic’s Claude Cowork plugins, wiped out roughly $285 billion from software, legal tech and financial services stocks in a single session. Analysts dubbed it a ‘SaaSpocalypse’. Pichai’s view? The scramble is overdone.
Nvidia’s Huang chimes in with Pichai, calls selloff ‘most illogical thing in the world’
Pichai isn’t alone in questioning the market reaction. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was even more direct at a Cisco event, calling the selloff “the most illogical thing in the world.” His take: AI will use existing software tools, not reinvent them. “Would you use a screwdriver or invent a new screwdriver?” he asked. Huang added that Nvidia itself has adopted such tools extensively, freeing up employees to focus on designing chips and computer systems.Software company executives have also pushed back, arguing they do far more than just build code. Their offerings include data management and purpose-built solutions that are difficult to replicate, especially for enterprises outside the tech world like retail and oil and gas.
What exactly triggered the selloff
Anthropic released 11 open-source plugins for Claude Cowork, its agentic AI assistant for non-technical professionals. Most covered standard enterprise functions—sales, marketing, finance, customer support. But the legal plugin rattled nerves. It automates contract review, NDA triage, compliance checks and legal briefings.Morgan Stanley analyst Toni Kaplan called it “a sign of intensifying competition” that could hurt big players in the legal space. The fallout was swift. Thomson Reuters and RELX both closed down around 15%. LegalZoom crashed nearly 20%. Indian IT stocks weren’t spared—Infosys ADRs slipped 5.5%, Wipro fell nearly 5%.
Why the fear runs deeper than one plugin
The concern isn’t just about legal workflows. There’s a dawning realisation that AI tools can now do far more than most non-techies realise. With relatively simple prompts, they can take over a user’s computer, write software, analyse stock market data, manage emails and countless other tasks. People have taken to social media describing how they built their first software program without ever learning to code. Shopify’s CEO built software that could interpret his recent MRI.Meta’s CFO Susan Li told investors last week that the company has seen a 30% year-over-year increase in output per engineer driven by AI coding tools. Power users have seen an 80% boost.Anthropic’s numbers back up the concern. Claude Code hit $1 billion in annualised recurring revenue by November, months after launch. The company is reportedly raising $20 billion at a $350 billion valuation. Jefferies noted that OpenAI is losing corporate ground to Claude, with enterprises now making up 80% of Anthropic’s business.Pichai and Huang are betting the panic subsides. Wall Street isn’t so sure yet.
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