Anthropic Hits 85,000 Certifications, Eyes Partner Training Expansion

‘Given the fact this is probably the biggest platform shift that any of us will ever see, and all enterprises are going to it, there are genuinely going to need to be millions of people trained who know what they’re doing,’ says Anthropic Channel Chief Steve Corfield.

About five months after Anthropic launched its Claude Partner Network, the artificial intelligence upstart is focused on providing solution providers with resources for new certifications that help with differentiation in the fast-growing ecosystem.

Anthropic Channel Chief Steve Corfield, who is approaching the one-year mark of becoming the San Francisco-based vendor’s head of business development and partnerships, told CRN in an interview that Anthropic has reached about 85,000 total certifications issued across nearly 2,000 partner companies.

The vendor now has about 75,000 certified consultants in its ecosystem, a major jump from the 36,000 across 1,300 organizations disclosed in July and the 10,000 reported in June.

“Given the fact this is probably the biggest platform shift that any of us will ever see, and all enterprises are going to it, there are genuinely going to need to be millions of people trained who know what they’re doing,” Corfield said. “Our view is very much that that workforce barely exists today. And somebody has to build it. And somebody has to set the standard. We intend to do both.”

Anthropic Invests In Claude Certification Program

Tony Olzak, CTO at Irvine, Calif.-based solution provider Trace3—No. 36 on CRN’s 2026 Solution Provider 500, a CRN 2026 MSP 500 honoree and an Anthropic partner—told CRN in a recent interview that Trace3 looked to partner with the Claude maker in part from popularity with employees plus the vendor’s focus on AI-powered coding tools paying off.

The investment comes as Trace3 continues to build a reputation as the premier solution provider for startups, with about one-third of Trace3’s product business from startups.

“There are literally thousands of startups that we are tracking, meeting with, vetting—very early stage through various degrees of maturity who all create the ecosystem that is going to make AI successful,” Olzak said. “There are many firms that you’re going to be able to go to say, ‘Hey, how do I use Anthropic’s bevy of tools and technology to go solve this problem?’ We’re taking it beyond that.”

Claude Professional Certifications Target Enterprise AI Skills

About 42,000 companies have registered as Claude Partner Network members, Corfield said, noting that it can take vendors years to reach that number.

More than 400,000 people have completed Claude training this year through the free Anthropic Partner Academy, the vendor revealed in July when introducing an expanded Claude Certification Program.

Corfield said that Anthropic is at work on a Claude Certified Developer: Professional certification building on the existing Developer: Foundations one already available and aimed at engineers building applications with Claude. The new certification is expected by the fourth quarter.

The vendor recently expanded its credential offerings to include Claude Certified Architect: Professional,” validating expertise in integration architecture, governance and evaluation at enterprise scale. Anthropic has partnered with credentialing and education giant Pearson on issuing the certifications.

Anthropic is working on partner training on Claude Security and an upcoming forward-deployed engineering (FDE) program, Corfield said.

Anthropic Channel Chief On FDE, Working Through Partners

Anthropic—alongside other technology vendors including Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and OpenAI—has supported investment in FDE as a way of ensuring successful AI deployments and continued AI consumption.

The Claude maker has even partnered with some leading financial firms to launch the Ode AI services company, which recently announced the acquisition of fellow services company Casper Studios. Corfield said that the vendor’s FDE investments don’t take away from channel partners.

“We’re a small organization from a head count perspective,” he said. “Our goal is very much scaling through the partners and how much autonomy can we drive through the partners.”

Trace3’s Olzak told CRN that the solution provider still plays a major role in standing up AI and continued AI success within customers even as Anthropic and other vendor partners of Trace3 invest in FDEs.

FDE investments can help vendors better understand customers and use cases to improve prototyping, as an example, Olzak said.

Companies like Trace3 differentiate from vendor FDE branches in part through their ability to bring together products and services from a variety of vendors and because Trace3 can scale AI use cases beyond the FDE level.

“It is creating massive opportunity for us to come in and say, ‘Let us help you mature that now,’” he said. “Let us help you go do this at scale and beyond the FDE or a few FDEs that you have. They’re going to need more help in even constructing the use cases and everything else. And so think of it as like a demand driver that should actually benefit the entire channel all the way down.”

Engineering-focused solution providers are arguably the original FDE branch, he said.

“You basically have intimacy and knowledge that you’ve developed with probably a few presales-related resources that are dedicated to your account, and they’re spending time with you and your team, they’re helping you understand this stuff,” he said.

To illustrate how in demand Claude skills are, Corfield said that he went to Bengaluru, India, recently to an event meant to certify 5,000 people. Instead, the event had a 29,000-person waitlist.

The expanded Claude Certification Program adds new role-based certifications including Claude Certified Associate-Foundations to validate everyday Claude use.

Anthropic puts an emphasis on the number of certified people within the solution provider, deployments, quality of deployment and public customer stories that show high-quality service.

“We have taken the pillars of what you would see in a standard architecture, but then we are distilling that into: How does that need to work in an AI landscape?” said Corfield.

Claude partners also have access to the same “base camp” training in applied AI as Anthropic employees, Corfield said.

AI Outcomes Vs. Token Costs

As users shift toward getting better cost efficiencies out of their AI investments, Corfield said that he’s found customers prioritizing outcomes from AI and focusing less on maximizing cost per token.

The widely used Token Price Index (TPI), which measures 22 AI models, put the average blended cost per million tokens at $2.34 on Aug. 27, down 0.4 percent week over week, up 4.8 percent month over month and almost double year on year.

Silicon Data’s LLM Token Expenditure Index has models priced at $1.06 per million tokens, flat week over week, down from about $2 heading into the summer and close to the amount seen back in December. The firm reported in August seeing the price of open models like DeepSeek and closed models like Claude coming closer over time. Open models remain overall less expensive.

Silicon Data’s Open LLM Token Expenditure Index put the price per million tokens at 55 cents, gradually rising over time from about 25 cents in December. Its Proprietary LLM Token Expenditure Index stood at $2.34 per million tokens as of Aug. 27. That is down from about $4 seen during the summer but double prices from the start of the year, according to the firm.

Solution providers are key for matching customers with the right model for the job, the channel chief said. Claude users, for example, will use the powerful Fable 5 model for some of the more complex tasks that need agents working over time, but they don’t need Fable for simpler tasks the more economical Haiku 4.5 can handle in real time.

“It’s right for us to work with the partners to ensure that they’re deploying the right technology at the right time, and such that those economics work for every customer that we deal with,” Corfield said.