AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File
- Anthropic studied its engineers to assess how AI tools like Claude Code are impacting work.
- Employees said they felt more productive and had wider skills, but also shared some concerns.
- They reported worries about the impact of AI on collaboration, mentorship, and job relevance.
AI is changing work, and Anthropic studied its own staff to learn exactly how.
In a blog post published on Tuesday, Anthropic shared the findings of its August research study, which surveyed 132 of its engineers and researchers, had 53 detailed interviews, and examined the internal use of Claude Code, Anthropic's agentic coding tool. The study aimed to understand how AI is transforming work at the company and society more broadly.
"We find that AI use is radically changing the nature of work for software developers, generating both hope and concern," the blog read.
Results showed that employees felt they were more productive and "full stack," meaning they could perform a variety of technical tasks.
For example, the study found that 27% of the work that was assisted by Claude consisted of tasks that would not have been done otherwise. These include scaling projects or nice-to-have data dashboards that would not have been cost-effective if done manually.
The Anthropic employees also reported that they could "fully delegate" 0-20% of their work to Claude, especially "easily verifiable" or "boring" tasks.
But employees also expressed concerns about how common AI assistants like Claude were becoming.
"Some found that more AI collaboration meant they collaborated less with colleagues; some wondered if they might eventually automate themselves out of a job," the blog read.
Employees said they were worried about the "atrophy of deeper skillsets" needed to write and check code.
"When producing output is so easy and fast, it gets harder and harder to actually take the time to learn something," one employee said, per the report.
Some employees said they missed social dynamics and mentorship opportunities.
"Claude is now the first stop for questions that used to go to colleagues," the report said. One person told the surveyors: "I like working with people, and it's sad that I 'need' them less now … More junior people don't come to me with questions as often."
The changes Claude Code is bringing to work inside the company also gave software engineers mixed feelings about their future relevance.
"I feel optimistic in the short term, but in the long term I think AI will end up doing everything and make me and many others irrelevant," the blog said, quoting an employee.
Others said that it was hard to predict what their roles would look like in a few years.
Outside Anthropic, employees are showing signs of embracing AI at work and wanting more tools that could improve their productivity.
According to a January McKinsey report on AI in the workplace, 39% of the 3,613 people surveyed self-identify as "Bloomers" — people who are AI optimists who want to collaborate with their company to create responsible AI tools. Another 20% identified as people who want AI to be quickly deployed with few guardrails.
McKinsey also found that even employees who reported AI skepticism expressed familiarity with generative AI tools.