Anthropic shakes up C-suite to expand its internal incubator

Mike Krieger, the Instagram co-founder who joined Anthropic two years ago as its chief product officer, is moving to a new focus at the AI startup: co-leading its internal incubator, dubbed the “Labs” team.

The Anthropic Labs team started in mid-2024 with just two members; now, the company has decided to expand it, with a focus on building “experimental products.” Krieger’s new title will be simply a member of technical staff reporting to Anthropic president Daniela Amodei, and he’ll co-lead the Labs team with Ben Mann, who has been the company’s product engineering lead. Ami Vora, the company’s current “head of product,” will take over Krieger’s duties and work closely with the company’s chief technology officer, Rahul Patil, to scale products, the company said.

The company hopes to double the number of Labs team members in the next six months.

In a statement to The Verge, Krieger said, “We’ve reached a watershed moment in AI—model capabilities are advancing so fast that the window to shape how they’re used is now. That’s why I’m getting back into builder mode, moving from my role as CPO and joining our Labs team: I want to be hands-on at the frontier, building products that channel AI toward solving the world’s hardest problems. I’m excited to pass the baton to Ami as she leads the team in scaling Claude.”

Anthropic’s C-suite shake-up comes at a time when competition among AI startups and tech giants has never been more stiff. Tech giants like Apple and Google are trying to shore up defenses against high-flying startups like OpenAI and Anthropic, while companies of all sizes are attempting to differentiate themselves by rebranding their longtime goal of “artificial general intelligence” (AGI). They’re also trying to set themselves apart in the AI agent game by constantly one-upping each other with new features designed to corner the market on consumers. As AI companies’ fundraising rounds balloon significantly — i.e., Anthropic is reportedly planning to raise $10 billion on a $350 billion valuation — investors are eager to see delivery on their promises.

Anthropic president Daniela Amodei said in a statement to The Verge that the “speed of advancement in AI demands a different approach to how we build, how we organize, and where we focus. Labs gives us room to break the mold and explore.”