Anthropic Acquires Vercept to Supercharge Claude's Computer Use - UiPath Stock Drops 3.6%
Anthropic acquires Seattle startup Vercept and its nine-person team of Allen Institute for AI alumni, folding their vision-based desktop automation into Claude as computer use scores hit 72.5% on OSWorld.
6 min read
Anthropic has acquired Vercept, a nine-person Seattle startup that built vision-based desktop automation, to accelerate Claude's computer use capabilities. The deal - announced today with no disclosed financial terms - brings three co-founders from the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) under Anthropic's roof and kills Vercept's standalone product within 30 days. Meanwhile, UiPath shares fell 3.6% on the news.
TL;DR
- Anthropic acquires Vercept, a Seattle AI startup specializing in vision-based computer automation
- Vercept's nine-person team includes three Ai2 alumni co-founders: Kiana Ehsani (CEO), Luca Weihs, and Ross Girshick
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 now scores 72.5% on OSWorld - up from under 15% in late 2024
- UiPath (NYSE:PATH) dropped 3.6% on competitive fears
- Vercept's desktop app Vy shuts down in 30 days
Who Is Vercept
The Team
Vercept was founded in 2024 by three researchers who left the Allen Institute for AI. Kiana Ehsani, the CEO, previously ran Ai2's robotics and embodied AI teams. Luca Weihs managed Ai2's research infrastructure, working on AI agents and reinforcement learning. Ross Girshick is a pioneer in combining computer vision with deep learning, having previously worked at Meta AI.
A fourth co-founder, Oren Etzioni - the former CEO of Ai2 - was an early investor and advisor.
The Product
Vercept built Vy, a Mac-native desktop agent that watched your screen, understood natural language commands, and then clicked, typed, and scrolled on your behalf. Unlike API-based automation, Vy took a "vision-first" approach: it captured screenshots, processed what it saw using computer vision models, and interacted with UI elements directly. No integrations. No connectors. No APIs required.
The approach was deliberately different from traditional RPA tools. Where UiPath and similar platforms require developers to build bespoke workflows using selectors and DOM inspection, Vy simply looked at the screen the way a human would.
The Money
Vercept raised a $16 million seed round in January 2025, reportedly valuing the company at $67 million post-money. The round was led by Fifty Years, with participation from Point Nine and the AI2 Incubator. Notable angel investors included Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO), Jeff Dean (Google DeepMind chief scientist), Kyle Vogt (Cruise founder), and Arash Ferdowsi (Dropbox co-founder).
That is a stacked cap table for a seed-stage startup - and it lasted barely a year before the acqui-hire.
Why Anthropic Wants This Team
The Computer Use Arms Race
Claude's computer use capabilities have improved dramatically. When Anthropic first launched the feature in late 2024, its models scored under 15% on OSWorld, a widely used benchmark that tests whether AI can autonomously operate a computer - navigating applications, clicking UI elements, filling forms, and completing multi-step workflows. As we noted in our Claude Sonnet 4.6 review, the latest Sonnet model now hits 72.5% on that same benchmark. For enterprise-specific workflows like insurance processing, Anthropic reports 94% accuracy.
That is a fivefold improvement in roughly 16 months. But "approaching human-level" is not "at human-level," and the gap matters enormously for enterprise customers who need reliability at scale.
What Vercept Brings
Vercept's core strength is perception - teaching AI to see and understand software interfaces the way humans do. This is the hardest part of computer use. A model that can write code or answer questions is useful. A model that can look at a spreadsheet, identify the right cell, and fill it in while navigating between browser tabs is transformative.
"Making AI genuinely useful for completing complex tasks requires solving hard perception and interaction problems," Anthropic said in its announcement.
Vercept's team spent years at Ai2 working on exactly this class of problem - embodied AI, visual reasoning, and robotic interaction with physical and digital environments. That expertise now goes directly into Claude.
Who Pays
UiPath and the RPA Industry
The market reaction was immediate. UiPath shares dropped 3.6% on the day of the announcement. The concern is straightforward: if Claude can reliably look at a screen and interact with any application - no integrations, no workflow builders, no professional services required - the value proposition of traditional RPA shrinks considerably.
Almost every large organization has legacy software that predates modern APIs. Insurance portals, government databases, ERP systems, hospital scheduling tools. These have historically been RPA's bread and butter. A general-purpose AI model that can interact with any of them visually undercuts the entire integration layer that RPA vendors sell.
| Traditional RPA | Claude Computer Use | |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Weeks to months per workflow | Zero-shot or minimal prompting |
| Maintenance | Breaks when UI changes | Adapts visually |
| Integration | Custom selectors per app | Vision-based, app-agnostic |
| OSWorld score | N/A | 72.5% (Sonnet 4.6) |
| Cost model | Per-bot licensing | API usage-based |
Vercept's Investors
Oren Etzioni, Vercept co-founder and early investor, told GeekWire he was "pleased to have gotten a positive return but obviously disappointed that after just a little over a year with so much traction, and such a fantastic team, we're basically throwing in the towel."
That is a remarkably candid quote for an acqui-hire announcement. A $67 million post-money valuation at seed, backed by some of the most connected names in tech, and the conclusion is that building a standalone computer-use product cannot compete with being inside the model itself.
A Pattern Emerges
This is Anthropic's second notable talent acquisition. The company previously acquired the team behind Bun, the JavaScript runtime. In both cases, the pattern is the same: acquire a small, technically exceptional team working on a problem Anthropic needs solved, fold them in, and shut down the standalone product.
As our guide on what AI agents actually are explains, computer use is one of the most important capabilities separating agents from chatbots. The ability to operate software autonomously - not just generate text about it - is what turns a language model into a digital worker. Anthropic is clearly betting that owning this capability end-to-end, rather than relying on third-party tools, is strategically essential.
What Happens Next
Vercept's desktop app Vy will shut down within 30 days. The team will focus exclusively on advancing Claude's computer use capabilities. For anyone currently using Vy, the product is dead.
For the broader market, the question is whether 72.5% on OSWorld is good enough. In benchmarks, that number is impressive. In production, it means roughly one in four tasks fails. Enterprise customers building critical workflows on top of computer use need that number much closer to 99%. Vercept's perception expertise is exactly the kind of talent that could help close that gap.
The acquisition also signals that Anthropic is preparing for a world where AI agents do not just assist with work - they do the work, directly inside the software humans use every day. As we covered in our review of Claude Opus 4.6, Anthropic's flagship model already supports agent teams, 1M token context, and sophisticated tool use. Adding world-class computer vision to that stack moves Claude closer to being a genuine digital employee, not just a better chatbot.
Whether that prospect excites or alarms you probably depends on which side of the automation line your job sits on. For Anthropic, the bet is clear: the future of AI is not in answering questions - it is in doing the work.
Sources:
- Anthropic acquires Vercept to advance Claude's computer use capabilities - Anthropic
- Anthropic acquires Vercept in early exit for one of Seattle's standout AI startups - GeekWire
- UiPath shares drop following Anthropic's Vercept acquisition announcement - MLQ.ai
- Vercept Raises $16M With Google Legend And Dropbox Co-Founder Backing - Yahoo Finance
- Anthropic Acquires Computer Use Startup Vercept.ai - OfficeChai
