Inside the tiny Anthropic team designed to kill bad ideas fast and keep starting over

Anthropic's Code with Claude conference in May 2026.Don Feria/AP Content Services for AnthropicAnthropic's Labs team is an in-flux group of around 20 trying to make products at the AI frontier.Like Bell Labs or Google's X, the team prototypes new ideas and often pivots. It built Claude Code.Cofounder and Labs head Ben Mann spoke about the group's work as Anthropic prepares to go public.Inside Anthropic, an unorthodox group can take a lot of credit for the AI company's meteoric rise.The company's