Anthropic cuts off company's Claude access, stranding 60 employees

AI company Anthropic abruptly cut off a company's access to its Claude assistant last week, leaving 60 employees unable to work and sparking criticism of the company's opaque enforcement policies. Belo CEO Patricio Molina reported on Twitter that Anthropic disabled his company's Claude access with only a vague reference to a "usage policy violation" and offered a Google Form as the sole recourse. The shutdown occurred without explanation of which specific rules were violated or how. "Never put your eggs in one basket," Molina tweeted after the incident. The company's daily workflows reportedly rely heavily on Claude's integrations, conversation histories, and automation capabilities. Access was restored after approximately 15 hours, though it's unclear whether Anthropic acted due to public pressure or internal review. According to the company, the suspension resulted from a false positive by an automated system. The situation generated significant backlash against Anthropic on social media platforms. Many users reported similar experiences of being cut off from Claude with minimal explanation and ineffective recourse through the Google Form system. Industry commentators noted the incident highlights the risks of depending on a single AI provider. While some suggested running local models as an alternative, others pointed out that Claude remains ahead of competitors in programming and automation capabilities. The episode underscores the challenges businesses face when proprietary AI services become integral to operations but remain subject to opaque enforcement mechanisms and single points of failure.