Anthropic Acquires Vercept to Advance AI Computer Control
Claude maker buys startup building systems that click, type and navigate software like human users as it sharpens its push into autonomous agents.
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Claude maker Anthropic has acquired Seattle-based startup Vercept, which builds AI systems that can operate computers by clicking, typing and navigating software interfaces like a human user.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
Following the deal, Vercept will shut down its external products, including Vy, a tool that enables AI systems to control desktops, automate workflows and interact with software interfaces.
The company said it will join Anthropic “in pushing the frontiers of computer use.”
Vercept was founded in late 2024 by former researchers from the Allen Institute for AI, including Chief Executive Kiana Ehsani and co-founders Luca Weihs and Ross Girshick.
Anthropic, founded in 2021 by siblings and former OpenAI executives Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei, said it looks for teams whose “technical ambitions match ours” and whose approach to AI development is grounded in safety and rigor.
The acquisition follows the recent release of Claude Sonnet 4.6, which Anthropic says significantly improves computer use capabilities. On OSWorld, a benchmark for evaluating AI agents’ ability to perform computer-based tasks, Sonnet models improved from under 15% in late 2024 to 72.5%, according to the company.
Anthropic said Sonnet 4.6 is approaching human-level performance on tasks such as navigating complex spreadsheets and completing web forms across browser tabs.
“People are using Claude for increasingly complex work, writing and running code across entire repositories, synthesizing research from dozens of sources, and managing workflows that span multiple tools and teams,” the company said in a blog post.
It added that computer use allows Claude to operate inside live applications “the way a person at a keyboard would,” enabling multi-step task execution beyond what standalone code can achieve.
Anthropic said the Vercept team’s expertise in enabling AI systems to see and act within everyday software aligns with some of the hardest technical challenges it is addressing.
Vercept follows Anthropic’s acquisition of Bun in December, a toolkit for building and running JavaScript applications.
