Cat Wu, who led Anthropic's Claude Code, is joining rival OpenAI, a sign that the fight over AI coding tools is getting more intense.
Cat Wu, the product leader behind Anthropic's Claude Code, is now joining OpenAI. She announced the move on X on Wednesday. She told followers on Tuesday that she had left Anthropic the week before. OpenAI confirmed the hire. Anthropic declined to comment.
Claude Code is an AI tool that helps write software. Wu oversaw it from an internal prototype to a commercial hit that has bolstered Anthropic's finances and changed the daily work of software engineers. At OpenAI, she will lead product management for the core products team and report to Tibo Sottiaux. She will work with Nick Turley on enterprise products and Ashley Alexander on consumer products.
This is not her first exit. Wu joined Anthropic in summer 2024. She and Claude Code creator Boris Cherny left for the coding startup Cursor in 2025, then quickly returned to Anthropic, The Information reported at the time.
Her exit came a couple of weeks before Anthropic's planned initial public offering, its first sale of shares to the public. The company is pitching its financials to investors and trying to shore up its growth story.
Wu wrote on X that she had "no idea" whether leaving would let her sell shares earlier than staff who stay. She said it "wasn't a factor for me."
OpenAI has a similar tool called Codex. It has boosted the company's growth and has increasingly been pointed at non-technical work. The article notes that OpenAI fell behind Anthropic in enterprise sales earlier this year, and the hire could help Codex win more business customers. Wu cited OpenAI's reach of over 1 billion users as one reason for the move.
Her announcement hinted at the direction: "we'll build agents that have your back and your team's, and keep you in control, so you get more time for the people and work you love." Agents are AI programs that carry out tasks for you.
Competition between the two companies is likely to speed up upgrades. It should also bring more tools aimed at everyday work, not just programmers. Still unclear is what Wu will build first at OpenAI and when anything new will reach the public.
OpenAI hired the person behind Claude Code, so expect AI work tools from both companies to improve faster and reach beyond programmers.
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