IBM's slowing revenue growth triggers concerns about artificial intelligence, causing the stock price to fall.

IBM's first-quarter revenue growth slowed down, due to weak software business, exacerbating concerns about disruption in the market by artificial intelligence tools, leading to a 6.5% drop in its stock price after hours on Wednesday. With the introduction of tools that can automate daily business functions for enterprises, concerns about artificial intelligence eroding software business are growing day by day. IBM has been particularly impacted, with Anthropic stating in February that one of its tools can help modernize COBOL, a language widely used on the company's mainframes. According to data compiled by LSEG, IBM's revenue in the first quarter increased by 9% to $15.92 billion, lower than the previous quarter's growth rate of 12.2%, although it exceeded analysts' average expectations of $15.62 billion. IBM's software segment, supported by its high-profit hybrid cloud division Red Hat and a suite of artificial intelligence tools under the Watson brand, also saw a slowdown in revenue growth to 11.3%.