Anthropic Blindsides Its Business Partners

Weeks before Anthropic in April revealed Claude Design, an AI tool for creating designs and software application prototypes, it asked firms including Figma and Canva to be “partners” of the launch announcement showcasing the tool’s capabilities. These two design firms, longtime Anthropic customers, saw the launch as an opportunity to show how its products could complement their own.

But a few days before launch, Figma dropped out, and around the same time, Anthropic’s chief product officer, Mike Krieger, left Figma’s board. The rupture followed Anthropic’s changes to its plans for the launch that made its design product much more competitive with what Figma and Canva sell.