Anthropic introduced two major system updates for their AI chatbot, Claude. Through connections to Atlassian and Zapier services, Claude gains the ability to assist employees with their work tasks. The system performs extensive research by simultaneously exploring internet content, internal documents, and infinite databases. These changes aim to make Claude more useful for businesses and compete with rivals like ChatGPT.
The new features are called Integrations and Advanced Research. They are available for paid users of Claude’s Max, Team, and Enterprise plans. Anthropic also increased the amount of code its coding tool, Claude Code, can handle for top-tier customers.
How Claude’s New App Connections Work
Claude’s Integrations lets it talk directly to apps you use every day. For example
- Atlassian: Claude can write summaries or create pages in Confluence, a tool teams use for projects.
- Zapier: Claude can connect to Zapier’s automation tools to move data between apps like Google Sheets and Slack.
- PayPal: Claude can check sales numbers and help make budget reports.
Businesses can set these up in 30 minutes using guides from Anthropic. Once connected, Claude can see your project history, tasks, and company info to give better answers.
Advanced Research: Faster Answers With Proof
The Advanced Research tool makes Claude act like a detective. If you ask a question, Claude breaks it into smaller parts, searches websites, company files, and connected apps, and then writes a detailed report. Each fact includes a link to where Claude found it, so you can check it yourself.
For example, a marketing team could ask, “What do customers think about our new product?” Claude would
- Read reviews from the company’s Intercom chats.
- Check social media posts.
- Look at the survey results in Google Drive.
- Write a report with links to each source.
This used to take hours for humans. Now Claude does it in 5 to 45 minutes.
Problems and Concerns
Can We Trust Claude’s Research?
Even though Claude shows where it gets its info, some worry about mistakes. A study last month found that AI tools sometimes use outdated or incorrect data. Anthropic says citations help fix this, but companies might still need humans to double-check.
Will AI Take Jobs?
Claude’s new skills could replace some tasks done by researchers or assistants. A startup CEO said, “We saved 20 hours a week using Claude, but I had to let go of two interns.” However, new jobs might come up, like training AI or checking its work.
Why Anthropic Is Making These Changes
Anthropic wants to catch up to bigger rivals like OpenAI (ChatGPT) and Google (Gemini). The company hopes to grow from $1.4 billion in yearly revenue to $34.5 billion by 2027. Business users are key to this plan.
Big companies like Netflix and Spotify are testing Claude’s new tools. Early users say Claude cut meeting prep time by half and helped spot customer trends faster.
