AI companies are increasingly stepping on each other's turf. Anthropic, OpenAI, and Emergent — each originally focused on different slices of the AI stack — are now expanding into coding agents, personal assistants, and no-code app builders. The driver: high valuations and rapid commoditization of foundational models have made it harder to stand out on model quality alone, pushing firms to chase revenue in adjacent application layers.
Coding platforms collide
Anthropic launched Claude Code in 2024, a direct competitor to coding assistants from Cursor and Cognition. OpenAI had already entered the space with Codex that same year, which later evolved into a virtual AI agent capable of managing emails, files, and meetings. The overlap is no coincidence: coding is seen as a high-frequency use case with paying customers. Emergent CEO Mukund Jha has said that only 20% to 30% of the work actually involves coding — the rest is infrastructure, suggesting room for tools that streamline the full pipeline.
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The personal agent pivot
OpenAI hired Peter Steinberger, the creator of the open-source OpenClaw assistant builder, in February 2025, signaling a push into personalized agent tools. Meanwhile, Emergent — a vibe-coding startup backed by SoftBank and Lightspeed — expanded into the personal agent space in March 2025. Anthropic may be developing its own app builder for non-technical users, based on unconfirmed screenshots. The moves point to a broader trend: everyone wants to own the interface between humans and AI.
Canva and the super app question
Graphic design company Canva has also entered the generative AI and productivity suite market. That raised questions about whether the industry is heading toward "super apps" — all-in-one platforms that handle everything. Tom Sheridan of RTP Global dismissed that notion. "Super app talk is mostly noise that's going to get resolved by the IPO calendar," he said. The implication: fragmented, specialized tools may win over monolithic platforms.
The immediate question is whether Anthropic's rumored no-code builder materializes. If it does, it would directly compete with platforms like Replit and Lovable, and further blur the lines between AI companies. For now, the market is watching for official announcements from Anthropic — and for whether the revenue from these new frontiers justifies the expansion costs.
