Deutsche Bank makes the case for why Anthropic won't kill software stocks

• Deutsche Bank analysts say Anthropic won't be the end of software.
• They maintain that software stocks can survive the AI boom and even benefit from it.
• In their view, Anthropic's AI platform will not be able to replace entire systems.

Deutsche Bank isn't concerned about what's become one of the most feared names on Wall Street: Claude.

Anthropic is the market's newest boogeyman, as its updates and announcements about its AI chatbot have sparked panic about the potential disruption to everything from software to trucking.

Software stocks have been among the most impacted, taking sizable losses as investors wonder if the sector is doomed to be cannibalized by AI.

Following Anthropic's briefing on Tuesday, though, Deutsche Bank analysts maintain their positive outlook on the software industry. In fact, they see Anthropic's progress and the broader advent of AI as a likely positive catalyst for the tech sector, even as AI fears continue to sway the market.

"After watching Anthropic's Enterprise Agents briefing event, we have even greater conviction that model providers are unlikely to displace software incumbents and are instead positioning themselves and their agents to be an orchestration layer on top of existing and incumbent systems," wrote analyst Brad Zelnick in a note to clients.

His team's core thesis regarding Anthropic's long-term impact on software centers around the argument that, despite the recent focus on AI disruption, the technology still should not be seen as a substitute for entire systems.

"Various partnership announcements earlier in the day (including Intuit) along with mentioning the importance of data and context that live in the various systems of record and engagement suggest that it remains very difficult to replicate or displace much of the knowledge, metadata, and workflows incumbent systems have amassed," Zelnick wrote.

While Deutsche does see some risk for software stocks, their overall view on the industry is optimistic that the rise of AI will broadly lift software makers.

Their view is a stark contrast to that of some finance and investing pros. Renowned statistician and author Nassim Taleb recently predicted that software bankruptcies are coming and stock gains of recent years could be wiped out. Yet, Deutsche maintains the bullish view that the market has room for both software and AI winners.

"We continue to see this as positive for the infrastructure/compute layer given the increase in queries by humans/agents against underlying enterprise data," Zelnick noted.