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How Cursor is building the future of AI coding with Claude
@ Anthropic
06/11/25
Takeaways
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Alex Albert
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
Every aspect of software production will be transformed by AI integration.
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Alex Albert
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
Cursor has scaled to over $300 million in revenue within just over a year, indicating significant growth in the AI industry.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
Cursor was among the first coding companies to effectively leverage advanced language models, closing the gap in coding capabilities with various features.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
The introduction of the 3.5 Sonnet model marked a significant improvement in programming capabilities, enabling Cursor to enhance its features and user experience.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
By combining the intelligence of the 3.5 Sonnet model with custom retrieval models, Cursor can now perform multi-file edits, which has driven mass adoption of the platform.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
The progression of AI models has allowed Cursor to continuously improve its features, enabling more effective coding and problem-solving.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
Cursor's team utilizes its own product to build and improve Cursor, creating a self-improving feedback loop that enhances feature development.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
The use of Cursor's Agent feature is particularly beneficial for laying out new code bases and addressing specific coding challenges.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
Cursor's philosophy encourages all team members to experiment with new features, fostering innovation and internal feedback.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
Being its own best customer allows Cursor to quickly iterate on features, discarding those that don't work without needing external user feedback.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
The diversity in how team members use AI tools reflects the varying stages of familiarity with the code base, impacting how effectively they can leverage these tools.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
Cursor's features range from simple tab completion for familiar code to more complex agent functionalities for editing multiple files, adapting to user expertise.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
The background agent feature allows developers to work on multiple changes simultaneously, enhancing productivity and streamlining the development process.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
The next challenge in software development will be ensuring the verification of code generated by AI, as simply improving code writing won't significantly speed up engineering processes.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
Improving the code review process and ensuring confidence in AI-generated changes will be crucial for the future of software engineering.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
Michael, our CEO, believes in representing the code base in a different way, possibly as pseudo code, which could significantly shorten verification time if it maps cleanly to actual changes in the software.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
The ease of verification in vibe coding comes from the ability to interact directly with the software, making it challenging to apply this approach to large production codebases.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
With the background agent, we aim to simplify the process for developers to create environments where the model can run tests and make it repeatable, allowing for quick updates as code states change.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
In large codebases, the complexity of dependencies can hinder the model's ability to run tests effectively, which is a significant challenge we are addressing with the background agent.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
Training retrieval models and integrating various sources of context can enhance the model's understanding of large codebases, especially by leveraging recent changes made by developers.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
While giving the model access to good retrieval is important, it is still a fundamental challenge to ensure the model truly understands the codebase, which we are keen to solve.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
API design is evolving to make it easier for language models to interact with software, ensuring that version changes are clearly communicated to the model for correct usage.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
The principles of clean software remain crucial for both human and model readability, emphasizing the importance of simplicity and avoiding unnecessary complexity in code.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
As AI takes on more coding tasks, maintaining a balance between automation and preserving core engineering skills is essential for the development of effective programmers.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
These tools can serve as valuable educational resources, helping developers learn and iterate quickly, which ultimately enhances their programming skills over time.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
The evolution of programming may lead to a new class of engineers who operate at a higher level without needing to know all the low-level details, focusing more on user experience and interaction design.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
Describing interactions and the overall functionality of software remains a form of programming, even if it doesn't involve writing low-level code directly.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
The new models, Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4, have impressed us, particularly with their capabilities in agentic coding, which we are excited to integrate into Cursor.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
Sonnet 4 has effectively fixed previous deficits in coding models, showing significant improvements in intelligence and performance compared to earlier versions.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
We've made substantial progress in reducing reward hacking in our models, cutting it down by about 80% in the new iterations.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
3.5 Sonnet was the first model where we dedicated significant effort to improve coding capabilities, focusing on longer horizon coding tasks.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
While coding is a primary focus, we see a transfer of skills from coding models to enhancing reasoning and agentic behavior in other applications.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
The future of software development will involve more people, including those in non-technical roles, building their own software tools, but they will still need to make critical decisions about functionality and metrics.
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Anthropic Cast
06/11/25
@ Anthropic
Startups like Cursor and Anthropic attract high talent density, making it enjoyable to work on impactful projects with a small team, which can change how the world writes software.