IBM shares plunged nearly 13% on Monday after Anthropic published a blog post arguing that its Claude Code tool could automate much of the complex analysis work involved in modernizing COBOL, the decades-old programming language that still underpins an estimated 95% of ATM transactions in the United States and runs on the kind of mainframe systems IBM has sold for generations. Anthropic said the shrinking pool of developers who understand COBOL had long made modernization cost-prohibitive, and that AI could now flip that equation by mapping dependencies and documenting workflows across thousands of lines of legacy code. The sell-off deepened a rough 2026 for IBM, whose shares are now down more than 22% year to date.

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IBM said it will triple entry-level hiring in the US in 2026, even as AI appears to be weighing on broader demand for early-career workers. From a report: While the company declined to disclose specific hiring figures, it said the expansion will be "across the board," affecting a wide range of departments. "And yes, it's for all these jobs that we're being told AI can do," said Nickle LaMoreaux, IBM's chief human resources officer, speaking at a conference this week in New York. LaMoreaux said she overhauled entry-level job descriptions for software developers and other roles to make the case internally for the recruitment push. "The entry-level jobs that you had two to three years ago, AI can do most of them," she said at Charter's Leading With AI Summit. "So, if you're going to convince your business leaders that you need to make this investment, then you need to be able to show the real value these individuals can bring now. And that has to be through totally different jobs."

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