'The market's in seek and destroy mode': The new AI model scaring lawyers and legal firms

• The legal analysis plug-in for Claude chatbot caused immediate stock market reactions in professional services sectors, with analysts describing the market as being in 'seek and destroy mode' hunting for AI-vulnerable industries
• Claude Opus 4.6 outperformed previous models in 38 of 40 cybersecurity investigations according to Norway's Sovereign Investment, and can now handle complex tasks in enterprise applications like building presentation decks and working with large codebases
• Financial analysts suggest this could be the 'canary in the coal mine' for an AI bubble burst, following historical bubble patterns where winners narrow before market-wide collapse

Market Summary: Anthropic's Claude AI Threatens Legal Sector, Rattles Markets

Key Developments

Anthropic, a major AI company known by less than 5% of the U.S. population, released Claude Opus 4.6 this week, triggering significant market reactions. The update included a legal analysis plug-in that reportedly caused stocks in the legal services sector to decline.

Product Capabilities

The new model extends beyond Anthropic's established strength in code-writing (Claude Code) to target knowledge workers directly. Key features include:

• Advanced legal analysis tools
• Direct integration with Excel and PowerPoint
• Slide creation, restructuring, and diagram generation from corporate templates
• Superior performance on cybersecurity investigations (38 out of 40 cases in blind testing by Norway's Sovereign Investment)

Anthropic describes this as "our most capable model for all enterprise and knowledge work," though users must pay for access.

Market Implications

James Sym, partner at London-based equity firm Goodhart, warns "the market's in seek and destroy mode," actively identifying sectors vulnerable to AI disruption. After witnessing AI's impact on coding jobs, investors are now questioning which professional services face similar threats.

Sym suggests this could signal a critical inflection point: "This may well be the canary in the coal mine" for AI market exuberance. He notes historical bubble patterns show progressively fewer perceived winners before complete market corrections.

Industry Response

Max Junestrand, CEO of legal AI firm Legora, downplays concerns, emphasizing differences between plugins and production-grade platforms used by major legal teams.

Date: February 5, 2026