Anthropic co-founder on cutting access to Windsurf: 'It would be odd for us to sell Claude to OpenAI' | TechCrunch
Jun 05, 2025 - techcrunch.com
Anthropic has cut Windsurf’s direct access to its Claude AI models due to rumors of OpenAI acquiring Windsurf and Anthropic's desire to focus on sustainable partnerships. Jared Kaplan, Anthropic's Co-founder and Chief Science Officer, explained that the company is currently computing-constrained and wants to reserve resources for lasting collaborations. This decision has forced Windsurf to seek third-party computing providers, potentially causing short-term instability for its users. Anthropic is working to increase model availability and has started unlocking capacity on a new computing cluster with Amazon.
Kaplan emphasized Anthropic's focus on developing agentic coding products like Claude Code, rather than AI chatbots, which he views as limited. He mentioned collaboration with companies like Cursor, which is also building AI coding tools, and dismissed the notion of competition with them. The article also notes that OpenAI, Google, and Meta are competing in the AI chatbot space, but Kaplan believes AI agents will ultimately be more beneficial.
Key takeaways:
Anthropic cut Windsurf's direct access to its Claude AI models due to rumors of OpenAI acquiring Windsurf and to focus on sustainable partnerships.
Windsurf expressed disappointment in Anthropic's decision, which may cause short-term instability for users accessing Claude via Windsurf.
Anthropic is focusing on developing its own agentic coding products, such as Claude Code, rather than AI chatbot experiences.
Anthropic is collaborating with other AI coding tool companies like Cursor and is expanding its computing capacity with Amazon's support.
