IT News on October 6th: According to The Information, Meta and Microsoft have asked employees to reduce the use of AI models under Anthropic in order to cut costs, and have encouraged employees to make more use of their own developed AI tools.

It is reported that earlier this year, Microsoft executives estimated that the annual expenditure on using Anthropic AI within the company would reach at least $1 billion (Note from IT: The current exchange rate is approximately 6.714 billion RMB). Subsequently, Microsoft asked employees to reduce their reliance on Claude and make more use of its own-developed AI tools; recently, the related budget has been cut by more than one-third.

Microsoft's recent adjustment is mainly aimed at internal daily use and does not indicate a corresponding decline in the demand for its Anthropic model services provided to external clients. Currently, the company continues to offer customers Claude and other AI models through its enterprise-level cloud platform.

Internal data shows that the number of people using Claude Code has significantly decreased to about 30,000, whereas earlier this year it was around 60,000. In addition to the reduction in the total workforce due to a layoff of about 10% this spring, Meta's recent heavy promotion of its own AI tool is also a key reason for the decline in usage of Claude.

At present, Meta has launched several internal AI tools for employees to use. Among them, the number of internal users of MetaCode has exceeded 30,000; another tool, Muse Code, which is currently in testing with external customers, was launched in August, and the number of internal users has also surpassed 6,000. Muse Code is equipped with a large model developed in-house by Meta and is widely regarded as a direct competitor to Claude Code.

However, despite the significant reduction in the number of users within Claude Code of Meta, its expenditure scale remains quite considerable. It is reported that Meta spent over 105 million US dollars (approximately 705 million RMB at current exchange rates) on Claude Code in the past 28 days.

According to the prospectus for its initial public offering (IPO) previously submitted by Anthropic, two major customers contributed approximately 25% of its revenue; although their names are not directly disclosed, the market generally speculates that Meta and Microsoft are its core clients. In addition, Anthropic stated in the prospectus that most of its major customers have not signed long-term cooperation agreements with the company, and these customers may reduce or even cease their purchasing expenditures at any time.