Intuit's stock pops as new Anthropic partnership calms some nerves around AI disruption

By Emily Bary

Intuit's stock has been the S&P 500's worst performer this year. Now the company is teaming up with the company that's fueled investor fears.

Intuit's stock has been severely dragged down by fears that artificial intelligence will weaken demand for its tax-preparation tools and business-software offerings.

Now the company is partnering with the AI player that's been a major source of nightmares in the software sector.

See also: Did a blog post just cause software stocks to lose more than $200 billion in market cap?

Intuit (INTU) said Tuesday that it has struck a multiyear agreement with Anthropic through which the companies would provide tools that let businesses build AI agents for their unique needs. The companies gave an example of a small restaurant chain that would make an AI agent that could synthesize staffing, inventory and other data across locations to identify which are underperforming.

"Businesses will be able to build and customize agents on the Intuit platform to support compliant workflows, regardless of their technical expertise," the companies said in a release.

Intuit's stock is up 5% in Tuesday's premarket action.

The partnership also involves integrating Intuit tools like TurboTax and Credit Karma within Anthropic's Claude chatbot, in ways that could potentially alleviate investors' near-term fears about AI disruption.

"A consumer will be able to connect their paystubs to Claude, use Intuit's tax tools to estimate their refund, seamlessly schedule time with a trusted, AI-powered local TurboTax expert to file with confidence, get their guaranteed maximum refund and get help paying down high-interest debt," the release noted.

Don't miss: The smart way to use AI to do your taxes

And Intuit itself will use Anthropic's Claude Code tools to drive productivity gains on its engineering team.

In an environment where investors have been quick to sell stocks due to concerns about new AI developments, Intuit shares have been particularly punished. They've lost 46% so far this year, which is the weakest performance in the S&P 500 SPX to date.

Read: The sobering way most Americans plan to use their tax refunds this year

-Emily Bary

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02-24-26 0823ET