AI Just Killed the User Interface đ§ đ„ïž
Anthropic AI launched an app layer inside Claude, & it changed the role of SaaS entirely đ§©
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This week, ten software companies showed up to help build their own guillotine.
Amplitude. Asana ASAN 0.00%â. Box. Canva. Clay. Figma FIG 0.00%â. Hex. monday.com MNDY 0.00%â. Slack.
All of them became launch partners for Anthropicâs MCP Apps, a feature that lets Claude render their interfaces directly inside the chat window. Users can now drag Asana tasks, edit Figma diagrams, query Amplitude charts, and send Slack messages without ever leaving Claude.
No tabs, no logins, no context-switching.
The pitch is productivity. The subtext is more complicated: these companies just handed their user relationships to an AI company.
For two decades, SaaS has bundled three things: data, logic, and interface. The interface was the moat. Users learned your workflows, memorized your shortcuts, and built muscle memory around your menus. Switching costs werenât just about data migration - they were about cognitive reinvestment. You didnât leave Salesforce because you knew Salesforce.
MCP Apps unbundles the interface. When a user interacts with Asana through Claude, theyâre using Asanaâs data and logic but Anthropicâs interface. The destination website is dead for routine tasks. The app becomes a backend.
So why did ten sophisticated software companies line up to participate?
Because the alternative is worse. If youâre not accessible to the agent, you donât exist in the agentic workflow. The choice now isnât between owning your interface and losing it - itâs between becoming a headless provider and becoming invisible.
This is the moment when the app era started dying. And the companies that understand whatâs happening are already making their moves.
