Anthropic executive: Cowork Agent's potential surpasses Claude Code

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Anthropic is placing its bets on an AI agent aimed at a broader workforce, believing its market potential will surpass that of the company's star product, Claude Code, which has already brought in over $2 billion in annualized revenue.

On April 2, Bloomberg reported that Anthropic’s Chief Commercial Officer Paul Smith stated on Wednesday (April 1) that user adoption speed in the "initial weeks" after Cowork's launch has exceeded that of Claude Code during the same period a year ago.

He pointed out that engineers typically make up only 2% to 5% of employees in large enterprises, while Cowork's target audience is "the rest of us"—meaning its potential market size is far greater than developer-focused Claude Code.

Analysts note that Cowork's strong start is of strategic importance to Anthropic, which is seeking to replicate Claude Code’s path to success while dealing with IPO expectations, legal disputes, and intense competition.

Cowork: A General-Purpose AI Agent for the Masses

Cowork was released earlier this year in "research preview" form and quickly attracted widespread attention online.

Unlike Claude Code, Cowork does not require users to run a terminal or input command lines—making it significantly easier to use, and it’s designed to handle a broader range of work tasks rather than just programming scenarios. According to reports, Paul Smith’s reasoning is clear:

Since engineers are only a minority in most companies, a general-purpose agent for all employees theoretically has a much larger user base than Claude Code. Anthropic hopes to leverage its accumulated success with software developers and replicate it across broader workplace scenarios with Cowork.

Claude Code is one of the core drivers of Anthropic’s rise to the AI elite, and the company recently disclosed its annualized revenue has surpassed $2 billion. With this achievement, Anthropic has established a significant position in its competition with OpenAI.

Paul Smith said he expects the pace of future product launches will further accelerate. "The speed of innovation will increase," he said, "and one can confidently predict that model releases will continue to advance, with frequency only getting higher."

However, rapid iteration also comes at a cost. Paul Smith admitted that the previous Claude Code source code leak was caused by a "process mistake" during the rapid product release cycle, but emphasized that the leak was "absolutely not a security flaw or hacking incident," and the related issue has been handled.

Legal Disputes and IPO Expectations Side by Side

The report notes that behind rapid expansion, Anthropic is also facing external pressures.

The company is currently embroiled in legal disputes with the US government—triggered by the Pentagon listing it as a supply chain risk, due to confrontations over AI safety measures. Anthropic has warned that this characterization could result in losses of billions in revenue.

Regarding this, Paul Smith said that some customers actually appreciate the principled stance Anthropic has shown in negotiations with the US government.

Meanwhile, according to earlier media reports, Anthropic is moving forward with plans to go public as early as this year. Paul Smith declined to comment on the IPO timeline but said the company "is very confident about our progress toward our gross margin targets and previously stated profitability goals."

On the funding side, Anthropic completed a $30 billion fundraising round this February, giving it ample resources to continue investing in chips, data centers, and talent, enabling it to compete full-scale with giants like OpenAI and Google.

"After the recent fundraising, we are very satisfied with our financial position," said Paul Smith.

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