IBM and Anthropic Bring Trusted AI to Telcos
International Business Machines (IBM), which has over a century of tech experience and is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud, AI and consulting expertise, is broadening its software portfolio with Claude through the strategic partnership with start-up Anthropic, which aims to accelerate the growth of enterprise-ready AI.
By adding to its portfolio, IBM is not only expanding its opportunities but hopes to deliver measurable productivity gains to incorporate security, governance and cost controls into the core progression of software development.
Currently, Claude is one of the leading and most powerful large language models (LLMs). As an AI platform, Claude works similarly to Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT but unlike its competitors, it utilises the rules of Constitutional AI to navigate its output - making it unique within the AI family.
A partnership for growth
The partnership sees Claude integrating into specifically chosen IBM software products. The first integration will be with IBM’s new AI-first integrated development environment (IDE), which is designed with sophisticated capabilities to create tasks for enterprise software development lifecycles (SDLC), software modernisation.
The IDE is currently in the testing phase and is only available for private preview to specific IBM clients, including more than 6,000 early adopters using the IDE. Through this, adopters are reporting productivity gains which, as a result, are creating cost savings with an average of 45%.
Dinesh Nirmal, SVP, Software at IBM, says: "IBM has been the backbone of enterprise technology for decades because we understand what it takes to deploy at scale in mission-critical environments.
"This partnership enhances our software portfolio with advanced AI capabilities while maintaining the governance, security, and reliability that our clients have come to expect. We're giving development teams AI that fits how enterprises work, not experimental tools that create new risks."
The move supports companies that are experimenting with AI, helping them find solutions to integrate seamlessly with active enterprise infrastructure, all while meeting IT requirements.
"Enterprises are looking for AI they can actually trust with their code, their data, and their day-to-day operations," says 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. This partnership with IBM lets us bring that same level of dedication to even more enterprise teams while building the open standards that will make AI agents genuinely useful in business environments."
How does it work?
Claude allows the IBM IDE to integrate into the software, embedding it in this way. The IDE is built to increase developer productivity and works in multiple languages and modes.
Examples of use case tasks across the software development lifecycle.
- Application modernisation at scale: Automated system upgrades and framework migrations, with intelligent, multi-step refactoring that maintains context across large, complex codebases.
- Intelligent code generation and review: AI assistance that understands enterprise architecture patterns, security requirements and compliance obligations.
- End-to-end orchestration: From initial development through testing, deployment, and maintenance, orchestrates modernisation, testing and remediation tasks seamlessly while maintaining context across sessions.
- Security-first development: Embedding security directly into workflows, enabling "shift-left" vulnerability scans, expedited FedRAMP hardening and facilitating quantum-safe cryptographic migration.
To further support their customers IBM and Anthropic have created a guide, “Architecting Secure Enterprise AI Agents with MCP,” which examines the agent development life cycle.
Company portals
Executives
Dinesh Nirmal
Senior Vice President, Products, IBM Software
