Tech giant IBM and AI company Anthropic partnered to integrate Anthropic’s Claude large language model (LLM) into IBM’s software portfolio, to help enterprises improve productivity while maintaining strong security and governance standards.
Through the collaboration, Claude will first be embedded in IBM’s new AI-focused integrated development environment (IDE). The IDE is designed to support various stages of the software development lifecycle, including modernization, testing, and maintenance. It is currently in private preview for select IBM clients, with more than 6,000 IBM developers already testing it internally. Early users reported productivity improvements of about 45%, alongside consistent code quality and adherence to security policies.
“This partnership enhances our software portfolio with advanced AI capabilities while maintaining the governance, security, and reliability that our clients have come to expect,” said Dinesh Nirmal, SVP, Software at IBM. “We’re giving development teams AI that fits how enterprises work, not experimental tools that create new risks.”
IBM said the partnership aims to help organizations move from AI experimentation to full-scale production. By combining Anthropic’s AI technology with IBM’s experience in hybrid cloud architecture, regulated industries, and enterprise software delivery, the companies hope to provide AI tools that integrate smoothly with existing IT systems and comply with corporate and regulatory standards.
“Enterprises are looking for AI they can actually trust with their code, their data, and their day-to-day operations,” said 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.”
Krieger noted that the partnership with IBM lets them 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.
The new IDE is expected to help developers automate software upgrades, modernize legacy applications, and perform multi-step refactoring across large codebases. It also enables intelligent code generation and review by taking into account enterprise architecture patterns, security requirements, and compliance needs. The platform incorporates security-first development by embedding vulnerability scans and supporting cryptographic updates to help ensure data protection.
As part of the initiative, IBM created a framework titled “Architecting Secure Enterprise AI Agents with MCP,” which Anthropic has verified. The guide introduces the Agent Development Lifecycle (ADLC), a structured model for designing, deploying, and managing enterprise AI agents. The framework addresses the growing demand for standards in building secure and reliable AI agents capable of supporting autonomous decision-making in business settings.
IBM will also contribute enterprise-grade assets and reference architectures to the Model Context Protocol (MCP) community. These include best-practice guides and open-source tools based on IBM’s experience deploying AI solutions across multiple client environments.
IBM said it plans to integrate Claude into additional products in the future, as both companies continue to develop enterprise-ready AI solutions focused on transparency, governance, and measurable value for clients.