Anthropic has officially cut Windsurf’s access to its Claude models. This happened after persistent reports that OpenAI, one of Anthropic’s biggest rivals, may buy Windsurf.
Though the deal is not confirmed, the news has already caused a rift in business ties. Jared Kaplan, Anthropic’s co-founder and Chief Science Officer, spoke about the change during a live event at TechCrunch.
He said the company wants to focus on strong, long-term partners. “It would be odd for us to be selling Claude to OpenAI,” Kaplan said during the interview.
Anthropic Prioritizes Long-Term Partners
Kaplan explained that the decision was not made lightly. While rumors about OpenAI played a part, a lack of computing resources was also a key reason.
He made it clear that Anthropic cannot serve everyone right now. The company must choose who to support based on lasting value.
“We are just trying to help our customers who will work with us in a stable way,” Kaplan said. By cutting Windsurf’s access, Anthropic can save its resources for customers who plan to stay in the long run.
Kaplan noted that Anthropic is still working to grow its computing power. He said the company is starting to use a new cluster from its cloud partner, Amazon, which he called “very large and still growing.”
This new cluster could allow Anthropic to serve more users soon. But for now, they must stay selective.
Windsurf Faces Setbacks
Losing access to Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Claude 3.7 Sonnet hit Windsurf hard. These models were a major part of the coding tools Windsurf offered.
Without them, the startup had to act fast and had turned to third-party providers to fill the gap.
The switch, however, came on short notice. Windsurf admitted that this could cause short-term problems for users who rely on its tools.
Still, the company did not directly criticize Anthropic or confirm the OpenAI rumors.
Anthropic Looks to New Partners
Kaplan said Anthropic is now working more closely with Cursor, a company that also builds AI tools for coding.
He said this new partnership shows promise and may last a long time. Kaplan also made it clear that Anthropic does not see Cursor as a rival.
Even though Cursor is building its own models, Kaplan believes the two companies can grow side by side.
This new relationship gives Anthropic a fresh path forward, one based on mutual goals and trust.
Agentic Tools
Kaplan also spoke about the future of Claude: he believes chatbots, while useful, limit what AI can do.
Instead, Anthropic wants to move toward agentic tools: AI systems that take action and solve real tasks.
One such product is Claude Code. Unlike a chatbot, Claude Code aims to help with coding tasks directly. Kaplan thinks tools like this will play a bigger role than chat models.
