The global tech market just experienced its most violent tremor since the 2020 pandemic, and it wasn’t triggered by interest rates or earnings. On February 4, 2026, a “tech rout’ saw over $285 billion in market value evaporate in a single session. The culprit is the “Anthropic Effect.” The San Francisco startup recently launched a suite of workplace automation tools—plugins for its Claude Cowork agent—that don’t just help humans work; they replace entire workflows in legal, compliance, and data analytics. This is a nightmare scenario for the traditional IT services model. For years, the bull case for AI was that it would assist developers. Now, the market is terrified that AI is actually going to bypass the software firms and outsourcing giants altogether.
In India, the fallout was immediae and brutal. The Nifty IT index plunged 7%, with heavyweights like Infosys and TCS losing between 6% and 9% in a single day. This isn’t just about stock prices; it’s a fundamental crisis of confidence. If a Claude agent can handle contract reviews and compliance documentation at a fraction of the cost, the “seat-based” pricing and billable-hours model used by Indian IT becomes a relic of the past overnight. Investors are no longer giving these companies the benefit of the doubt. Analysts at Jefferies have already dubbed this the “SaaSpocalypse,” signaling a period where the “visibility premium” of recurring revenue is being aggressively repriced.
But is this the end of the road? Not quite. While the “fear factor” is at an all-time high, the actual enterprise-grade implementation of these agents takes time. We are seeing a classic “K-shaped” split. While the “body shops” relying on manual labor are bleeding, specialized IT firms that can orchestrate these AI agents are being touted as the next big beneficiaries. The next 13 days of February will be the ultimate test of market nerves. Until the quarterly data catches up with the hype, the tech sector will remain a dangerous path for anyone looking for stability.
