Anthropic CFO Krishna Rao says AI now writes 90% of the company’s code and is changing the nature of a white-collar worker’s day.
On Wednesday’s episode of Patrick O’Shaughnessy’s podcast “Invest Like the Best,” Rao described a workplace within Anthropic where AI systems increasingly handle the execution layer of knowledge work, from software engineering to financial reporting, while humans move toward oversight, judgment, and strategy.
“Because of that, we hired more people,” Rao said, adding that he sees Claude as a productivity “accelerator.”
“It actually means we can get more done, and as our team grows, people become more productive as we gradually change how we use Claude internally. And I think that’s starting to happen in many companies as well.”
The comments offer a glimpse into how one of Silicon Valley’s leading AI companies believes artificial intelligence will reshape white-collar jobs. This is not necessarily done by eliminating workers completely, but by automating large portions of daily tasks and turning employees into supervisors of AI systems.
That change is already happening within Anthropic itself, Rao said.
“More than 90 percent of our code is actually written by Claude Code,” he said, referring to Anthropic’s AI coding products.
Rao said the company’s finance team is undergoing a similar transformation. Anthropic currently uses Claude to create its financial statements, and its monthly financial review process is “90-95% ready” before humans step in to review and interpret the results.
“What used to take hours to prepare for some internal reports now takes just 30 minutes,” Rao said.
Mr. Rao claimed that due to increased productivity, Anthropic’s employees were able to spend less time gathering information and more time making decisions about it.
“I look at it as highlighting and accelerating the talent that we already have,” Rao said. “We often talk about how density of talent beats mass of talent, and we think that’s true here as well. For example, you want the densest collection of AI research talent and inference engineering talent. And we think that delivered in the best models is really a winning combination.”
How AI will impact the workforce
Details about how Anthropic’s staff are using AI have emerged as companies across industries race to integrate the technology in the workplace. Some companies are encouraging employees to adopt AI as automation capabilities improve, while others are cutting staff due to new efficiencies created by AI.
This change has sparked a growing debate among economists and business leaders about whether AI will ultimately replace white-collar workers or make them more productive. Some warn that automation could eliminate jobs faster than new ones are created, while others argue that increased productivity could ultimately increase demand for labor.
As employees become more productive with AI assistance, companies may actually increase hiring because there is “no shortage of work to do,” Rao said.
Still, Rao’s description of Anthropic’s internal workplace suggests that the nature of white-collar work is already rapidly changing. He said employees are increasingly overseeing AI systems rather than completing tasks manually, while teams are deploying “swarms of agents” to work simultaneously across projects.
“It’s like everyone is a manager,” Rao said. “We are still in the very early stages of the impact it will have and the productivity gains it will bring, but the potential is incredible.”