When rumors started swirling about OpenAI possibly snapping up Windsurf, the coding startup, things shifted quickly for Windsurf’s access to Anthropic’s technology.
Jared Kaplan, who helped start Anthropic and is also the chief science officer, spoke at an event this week and pulled back the curtain on the move.
Anthropic stopped letting Windsurf connect directly to its Claude models, including the in demand Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Claude 3.7 Sonnet.
Kaplan told the crowd that selling Claude to OpenAI did not make sense for Anthropic, especially if OpenAI was about to become Windsurf’s new owner, a development confirmed through acquisition of Windsurf by OpenAI. From his perspective, it was time to focus on customers committed to Anthropic for the long term.
Computing Pressure and Partnership Strategy
The underlying reality, Kaplan acknowledged, is that Anthropic faces a real crunch when it comes to computing resources. Decisions about who gets direct access to its AI are driven both by rumor and real supply chain limits.
The company’s priority, he said, is to make its limited computing power available to partners who will be around for the foreseeable future. For Windsurf, the decision brought sudden change. The startup has scrambled to arrange new third party providers as a result.
Windsurf expressed disappointment and cautioned users about possible short term headaches as they adapted. Neither Windsurf nor OpenAI commented publicly on Kaplan’s explanation or the acquisition buzz.
Kaplan did point to a brighter outlook down the line. Anthropic is now using a large and growing computing cluster supplied by Amazon, and capacity is just beginning to open up.
He said that in the coming months, users and developers can expect more access to Claude models as their infrastructure grows. For now, though, selectivity is the approach, and Windsurf is not the only company feeling the squeeze.
Anthropic is collaborating with other teams creating coding tools, such as Cursor, which Kaplan singled out as a trusted partner. He dismissed talk of rivalry, and emphasized that projects like Cursor are meant to build on Claude rather than work against it.
The company’s attention is shifting too. Its roadmap now tilts increasingly toward agent style coding tools. Kaplan believes this route offers more flexibility than standard chatbot use, which he regards as stuck in place.
In his view, the future belongs to software that adapts and acts for its users, not just tools that reply to typed-out questions. While the industry focus seems fixed on chatbots, Anthropic is betting that agent driven coding will define the next wave, a perspective supported by Windsurf’s Claude access changes.
