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AI Writes 90% of Anthropic's Code: How AI Is Reshaping White-Collar Work
From Execution to Oversight
- Engineering: More than 90% of code is written by Claude Code, Anthropic's AI-powered coding assistant.
- Finance: Financial statements are now drafted by Claude, with monthly review processes reaching 90–95% completion before human analysts step in to interpret and refine results.
- Reporting: Tasks that once required hours of manual compilation now take approximately 30 minutes.
Talent Density, Amplified
The Broader Workforce Implications
A New Paradigm for Knowledge Work
Martha Stewart's new startup, Hint, aims to revolutionize home management by using AI to provide homeowners with proactive advice. With $10 million in seed funding led by venture capital firm Slow Ventures, Hint will launch this summer for desktop and iOS. The platform gathers data to help users manage their properties effectively, from repairs and maintenance to homeowners' insurance renewals. "The more Hint learns about your home, the more the system can do without human intervention," said Kevin Colleran, Slow Ventures' cofounder and managing director.
Amazon on Wednesday launched Alexa for Shopping, an AI-powered e-commerce assistant that effectively replaces Rufus, the standalone chatbot that made its beta debut in early 2024. The new tool lets users compare products and schedule purchases when prices drop. It comes as top tech companies aim to disrupt online shopping, to varying degrees of success. Earlier this year, OpenAI scaled back its shopping integration within ChatGPT, shifting from direct checkouts to requiring users to complete purchases through retailer apps.
A coalition of nine major TV networks has teamed with advertising platform OpenAP to create a standardized method for measuring the effectiveness of TV commercials, Variety reports. The goal of the initiative is to link ads to actual business outcomes, focusing on measurable results rather than traditional impressions. The partners — A+E Global Media, AMC Global Media, Fox, Hallmark Media, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Scripps Networks, TelevisaUnivision, and Warner Bros. Discovery — also aim to make ad buying less fragmented.
Mortgage rates have climbed to the highest level in over a month, but buyers have been undeterred, CNBC reports. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose to 6.46%, as optimism over an Iran war resolution waned. Still, mortgage applications climbed 1.7% last week from the previous week, per the Mortgage Bankers Association. Buyer demand has picked up in recent weeks, according to agents. "Potential homebuyers shrugged off the current economic and mortgage rate uncertainties and returned to the market," says MBA economist Joel Kan.
"It's making me dumber for sure."
Software engineers are sounding the alarm: the very AI tools meant to boost productivity are actively eroding their coding skills. 😬
A new report from 404 Media reveals that many developers now spend their days reviewing AI-generated code rather than writing it themselves — and the mental atrophy is real.
One veteran engineer put it bluntly: *"I forgot how to implement a Laravel API and it scared the s**t out of me... it feels like I am back before I ever wrote a single line of code."*
Another compared it to losing the ability to remember phone numbers after getting a cell phone — except now we're outsourcing *thinking* itself. 🧠📉
Meanwhile, companies like Meta have gamified AI dependency with internal "token leaderboards" that rank employees by how many AI tokens they burn through. Titles include "Token Legend" and "Cache Wizard." One top user averaged **281 billion tokens** in 30 days — potentially costing the company over $1.4 million. Meta has since taken the dashboard down after backlash.
The irony? Research confirms our critical thinking skills are being "sanded down" by over-reliance on AI. We're trading deep technical mastery for speed — and the bill will eventually come due.
LinkedIn Joins Growing Wave of Tech Layoffs with 5% Cut
LinkedIn is set to reduce its global workforce by approximately 5%, according to sources familiar with the matter. This move by the Microsoft-owned social network adds to a significant surge in technology sector layoffs recorded throughout 2026.
Key Details of the Restructuring
Scale of Cuts: About 5% of the headcount (LinkedIn currently employs over 17,500 full-time staff).
The Goal: Reorganizing teams to prioritize high-growth business areas.
Financial Context: The cuts come despite a 12% revenue increase in the most recent quarter—an acceleration of growth for the platform.
The Role of AI in Recent Cuts
While the "specter of AI-fueled disruption" looms over the industry, sources emphasize that these specific layoffs are not a direct result of AI replacing human roles. However, the broader tech landscape is rapidly shifting:
"Technology is altering work rather than erasing it." — Industry consensus on the impact of AI.
While many developers now use AI to assist with coding, the industry remains divided on whether the technology will ultimately lead to long-term job displacement or simply a shift in responsibilities.
2026 Tech Layoff Trends
The LinkedIn announcement follows a series of aggressive workforce reductions across the sector:
| Company | Estimated Reduction |
| Block (Jack Dorsey) | Nearly 50% |
| Cloudflare | ~20% |
| Meta Platforms | Targeting May 20 layoffs |
| ~5% |
According to tracking site Layoffs.fyi, the tech industry has already seen over 103,000 job cuts so far in 2026. This figure is rapidly approaching the 124,000 total reductions recorded for the entirety of 2025, signaling a volatile year for Silicon Valley.
Instagram announced on Wednesday that it’s globally launching “Instants,” a new feature for sharing authentic, disappearing photos after testing it with select users. The feature lets users share disappearing photos with their close friends or mutual followers that can be viewed only once and remain available for 24 hours.
The app borrows ideas from social platforms like Snapchat, Locket, and BeReal, as it focuses on authentic and ephemeral content.
Unlike Instagram, which is about curated and polished content, Instants is designed for quick, real-life snapshots. With Instants, you capture a photo with Instagram’s in-app camera and aren’t allowed to edit the image. The format doesn’t allow uploads from your camera, and, although you can add text to your “instants,” you can’t modify them any further. Meta said in a blog post that the idea behind this format is to share authentic moments as they’re happening.
It’s worth noting that Meta is also testing the Instants format as a stand-alone app in select regions, including Spain and Italy.
You can capture an Instant by tapping the mini photo stack in the bottom right corner of your Instagram inbox. After you share your Instant, recipients can react with emojis, reply, and send an Instant back. Meta notes that recipients can’t screenshot or record Instants that you’ve shared.
Instagram stores your shared Insta Stories in a private archive that you can see for up to one year. You can also compile Instants from your archive into a recap and post it to Instagram Stories.
If you’ve accidentally shared an Instant, you can tap the “undo” button and delete an Instant from your archive to unsend it to friends who haven’t opened it yet.
And if you don’t want to receive Instants, you can hold down the pile of Instants in your inbox and swipe right to temporarily stop receiving them. You can also choose to block or mute specific people.
Although Instagram began as a way for friends to share moments with each other, the platform has gradually become overrun with influencer content and ads. With Instants, the company looks to be leaning back into more casual, private interactions centered around photo sharing among circles of friends.
However, Instagram may be a bit late to capitalize on the trend of low-pressure, authentic photo sharing, as BeReal is not as popular as it once was, and many users already use Instagram Stories for fast, informal updates and might not see the need for a separate app and feature to do so.
Anthropic is reportedly close to a $950 billion valuation. Claude is winning over enterprise customers. AI models are shipping faster than ever.
And yet, the most revealing line from a recent interview with Anthropic's head of product wasn't about technology. It was this:
"Ideally, everyone can get a lot more done."
Not "no one loses their job." Not "teams stay the same size." Just... more done. With fewer people implied.
We're watching an entire industry agree, in polite language, that the goal is to compress human labor. Agents handle the tedious work. Managers oversee fleets of AI instead of teams of people. The intern becomes optional.
I'm not saying that's wrong. But I think we should be honest about what we're actually building toward — instead of dressing it up as "everyone gets more free time to build cool things."
The companies eating this market fastest will be the ones who say the quiet part loud. Are we ready for that conversation in our own organizations?
Kevin Warsh has been confirmed by the Senate as the next Federal Reserve Chairman — and his job, hard to begin with, just got a lot tougher.
The Fed's dual mandate is stable prices and maximum employment. Right now, it is missing on both. Financial markets are pricing in a rising risk of a rate increase and growing skepticism that further cuts are coming.
Adding a wrinkle: the man Warsh is succeeding has decided to stick around. Jerome Powell, who has faced unprecedented legal and rhetorical pressure from President Trump pushing for lower rates, is staying on in the cause of preserving Fed independence.
The question for Warsh is whether he can show the same resolve under the same pressure. The Fed is accountable to Congress, by law. Not to the political whims of any president.
What the Fed does is enormously consequential — for the broader economy, for borrowing costs, and for returns on savings.
At Bankrate, we're constantly monitoring the latest on interest rates, including mortgages, auto loans, and deposits. The Fed sets the tone for some of these rates, but not all. Treasury yields are also influential, particularly on longer-term borrowing like mortgages.
U.S. wholesale inflation came in hot last month. Producer prices rose 6% from a year earlier, the highest point in more than three years, as the Iran war pushes up energy prices and intensifies pressure on companies to pass along their rising costs to consumers.
The Labor Department reported Wednesday that its producer price index — which tracks inflation before it hits consumers — shot up 1.4% in April, the biggest monthly gain in more than four years.
Energy prices climbed 7.8% from March to April and 22.7% from a year earlier. Gasoline soared 15.6% from March, and diesel, the dominant fuel used in shipping, jumped 12.6%.
Gasoline prices, which have already become painful for many Americans, rose again overnight to a national average of $4.51 per gallon, according to the motor club AAA.
Excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called core producer prices rose 1% from March and 5.2% from April 2025.
All of the numbers released Wednesday caught economists off guard and altered the dynamic at the U.S. Federal Reserve and its fight against inflation.
Prices are rising at a time when Americans are already frustrated by the high cost of living. Affordability is likely to be a key issue when voters go to the polls on Nov. 3 to determine whether President Donald Trump’s Republican Party maintains control of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
“This report will set off alarm bells at the Fed and add fuel to the political conversation about affordability,″ wrote Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics. “The results are so far above expectations that this update will set off alarm bells in the financial markets, too.″
After the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, Tehran closed off access to the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passes.
The oil shock shows no sign of letting up. The International Energy Agency warned Wednesday that the “mounting supply losses from the Strait of Hormuz are depleting global oil inventories at a record pace.’’ Since February, global oil supplies have been reduced by 12.8 million barrels a day in what the IEA called “an unprecedented supply shock.’’
Wednesday’s report on producer prices showed a big uptick in shipping costs. The wholesale cost of truck transportation of freight shot up more than 8% from March, and air freight rose 3.6% for the month.
“Diesel fuel is also crucial for food prices, as it powers farm equipment along with commercial shipping and trucking,” wrote Grace Zwemmer, US Economist at Oxford Economics. “Food prices rose by a muted 0.2% in April, much stronger than the 0.6% decline seen in March, and it’s possible they will face upward pressure from higher fuel prices the longer the war persists.”
Wholesale prices can offer an early look at where prices for consumers may be headed.
Already this week, the Labor Department said that its closely watched consumer price index jumped 3.8% last month from April 2025 — the biggest year-over-year increase in more than three years. That has begun to appear in everything from what Americans pay for air travel, both tickets and baggage fees, to soap and toothpaste.
Walmart, a company famous for its intense focus on low prices, already announced rare price hikes last year as Trump’s tariffs were rolled out, and the rising costs may intensify pressure to do so again. It is not alone.
Whirlpool, which makes KitchenAid and Maytag appliances, reported this month that its revenue dropped nearly 10% in its most recent quarter and said that the war has caused a “recession-level industry decline″ that has undermined consumer confidence. It had announced a 10% price hike in April, its largest in a decade, and said another 4% price increase is coming in July.
The cost of credit, which had been in decline, has been frozen in place.
Before the Iran war, the Fed had been expected to cut its benchmark interest rate in 2026. But it has turned cautious as it waits to see how long the conflict lasts and whether higher energy prices spill over into other products and cause a broader inflationary outbreak.
Trump has attacked the Fed and its outgoing chair, Jerome Powell, for refusing to slash rates to boost the economy. Kevin Warsh, the president’s hand-picked choice to succeed Powell, was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday, but it’s unclear whether Warsh would pursue lower rates given the uncertainty caused by the war, or whether he could persuade his colleagues on the Fed’s rate-setting committee to go along if he tried.
Shoppers are feeling the impacts of inflation nationwide. New economic data shows that prices for wholesale products jumped 6% last month compared to a year ago, the fastest spike since December 2022. pic.twitter.com/QUsxUzGxkw
— CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil (@CBSEveningNews) May 14, 2026