AI Labs Buy Dev Tools to Lock Developers

AI companies are acquiring specialized developer‑tooling startups and integrating them into flagship coding assistants to capture the developer workflow. This both accelerates feature development and concentrates control over APIs, SDKs, and dependency paths that developers rely on. — If AI labs increasingly own the tools programmers use, competition, standards, and software supply‑chain resilience will be reshaped — with implications for antitrust, interoperability, and security.