IBM taps Anthropic’s Claude to accelerate enterprise AI development
IBM has partnered with Anthropic to bring its Claude large language model into select IBM software products, beginning with a new AI-first integrated development environment (IDE) designed for enterprise developers.
The collaboration aims to combine productivity gains with security and governance controls for large-scale business use.
Following the company announcement, Maryam Ashoori, PhD, IBM’s Vice President of Product, took to social media to share early testing results and additional details about the project. She wrote that “early testing with more than 6,000 IBM developers shows average efficiency gains of 45%, achieved within the compliance and security frameworks enterprises depend on.”
Claude integrated into IBM development tools
The new IDE, currently in private preview, is built to assist with tasks such as application modernization, code generation, and testing. It enables developers to automate complex workflows across different programming languages while embedding security checks directly into the software lifecycle.
Ashoori described the collaboration as part of a shift from pilot projects to “governed, production-grade systems,” positioning AI as a core component of IBM’s enterprise software strategy.
As part of the partnership, IBM released Architecting Secure Enterprise AI Agents with MCP, verified by Anthropic. The guide outlines a new Agent Development Lifecycle (ADLC) for building and managing AI agents securely at scale, an approach designed to meet enterprise standards for compliance, privacy, and risk management.
“Enterprises are looking for AI they can actually trust with their code, their data, and their day-to-day operations,” said Mike Krieger, Chief Product Officer at Anthropic. “Claude has become the go-to AI for developers at the world's largest companies because of our focus on safety and reliability.”
IBM contributes to AI open standards
IBM is also expanding its involvement in open standards through the Model Context Protocol (MCP) community, contributing reference architectures and tools developed through its experience in enterprise AI deployment.
“IBM has been the backbone of enterprise technology for decades because we understand what it takes to deploy at scale in mission-critical environments,” said Dinesh Nirmal, Senior Vice President of Software at IBM. “This partnership enhances our software portfolio with advanced AI capabilities while maintaining the governance, security, and reliability that our clients have come to expect.”
Ashoori added that the collaboration with Anthropic reflects IBM’s goal of advancing enterprise AI “from experimentation to operational reality.”
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