Anthropic officially announced the acquisition of Vercept, a Seattle-based AI startup specializing in computer vision and automation.
The acquisition is a strategic move to accelerate the “Computer Use” capabilities of Anthropic’s flagship AI, Claude, moving it beyond a text-based chatbot into an autonomous agent that can navigate software exactly like a human at a keyboard.
The Strategic Rationale: Vision-Based Automation
Vercept was founded by researchers from the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2), including vision AI pioneer Ross Girshick. Their core product, Vy, was a Mac application that allowed users to control their computers via natural language by “seeing” and interpreting the screen rather than relying on back-end APIs.
- Bypassing APIs: Unlike traditional automation tools (like UiPath) that break when a website’s code changes, Vercept’s technology uses computer vision to understand graphical interfaces. This allows Claude to interact with any software, even legacy apps that don’t have modern integrations.
- Superior Accuracy: Internal benchmarks reportedly showed Vercept’s automation achieving 92% accuracy, significantly higher than early attempts by competitors.
- Computer Use Milestones: The acquisition follows the release of Claude Sonnet 4.6, which already saw its “Computer Use” score on the OSWorld benchmark jump from 15% to 72.5%. Vercept’s team is expected to bridge the remaining gap to human-level proficiency.
Integration & Shutdown
As part of the deal, Vercept is winding down its independent operations to focus entirely on Claude’s development.
| Detail | Status / Info |
| Team Migration | The 9-person team, including co-founders Kiana Ehsani, Luca Weihs, and Ross Girshick, have joined Anthropic. |
| Product Shutdown | Vercept’s existing desktop app, Vy, will be discontinued by March 25, 2026. |
| Financial Terms | Undisclosed (though Vercept had previously raised over $50 million in funding). |
| Acquisition History | This is Anthropic’s second major acquisition, following the purchase of the coding engine Bun in December 2025. |
Context: The “Agentic AI” Race
The acquisition comes at a time of massive growth for Anthropic. Just weeks ago, on February 12, 2026, the company raised $30 billion in Series G funding, pushing its valuation to a staggering $380 billion.
The goal is to turn Claude into a “Digital Coworker.” With Vercept’s technology, Anthropic aims to let Claude handle multi-step workflows—such as analyzing a spreadsheet in Excel, drafting a summary in Word, and then emailing it via Outlook—entirely on its own by “watching” and “clicking” through the apps.
