Anthropic has acquired Vercept, a startup specializing in AI perception and interaction, to bolster Claude's computer use capabilities. The move, announced today by Anthropic News, aims to enable Claude to perform multi-step tasks within live applications, mirroring how a human would operate a keyboard.
Vercept's team, including co-founders Kiana Ehsani, Luca Weihs, and Ross Girshick, built their company around the thesis that genuinely useful AI for complex tasks requires solving hard perception and interaction problems. Their expertise directly addresses Anthropic's challenges in making AI systems see and act within everyday software environments.
The acquisition follows recent advancements in Claude Sonnet 4.6, which demonstrated a significant leap in computer use skills. On OSWorld, a key AI evaluation, Sonnet models improved from under 15% in late 2024 to 72.5% today, approaching human-level performance on tasks like navigating complex spreadsheets and web forms.
Vercept will wind down its external product, with its team joining Anthropic. This move aligns with Anthropic's strategy of acquiring teams whose technical ambitions, capabilities, and commitment to safety match its own, following its earlier acquisition of Bun.