More US agencies phase out Anthropic's AI products

WASHINGTON — Three more United States cabinet-level agencies, the departments of State, Treasury and Health and Human Services, moved to cease use of Anthropic's artificial intelligence products on Monday, joining the Pentagon in switching to rivals such as OpenAI under a new White House directive.

The government's widening boycott of Anthropic and its chatbot platform Claude marked a rebuke by Washington to a leading company that had kept the US at the forefront of national security-critical AI.

President Donald Trump ordered all US government agencies to phase out their use of Anthropic, which was declared a supply-chain risk by the Pentagon, a label that could reduce it to a pariah status typically reserved for enemy suppliers.

Following suit on Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a post on X that his department was terminating all use of Anthropic products, including Claude.

Separately, the HHS notified its employees in a message obtained by Reuters, and urged them to use other AI platforms instead, such as ChatGPT and Gemini. The HHS did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The US State Department likewise said it was switching the model powering its in-house chatbot, StateChat, to OpenAI from Anthropic, according to a memo seen by Reuters.

"In line with the president's direction to cancel Anthropic contracts, we are taking immediate steps to implement the directive and bring our programs into full compliance," State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott told Reuters in an email. Also on Monday, William Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said in a post on X that his bureau and mortgage agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were terminating all use of Anthropic products.

On Friday, Trump ordered a six-month phase-out for the Defense Department and other agencies using products from Anthropic.

Agencies via Xinhua