Google-Backed Anthropic Launches Claude AI Chatbot to Challenge ChatGPT
Anthropic officially releases Claude, a new AI assistant designed to be safer and more steerable than competitors. The chatbot is available to businesses through an API and boasts early praise from beta partners.
Anthropic, a Google-funded startup founded by former OpenAI employees, launches its highly anticipated AI chat assistant named Claude. This new chatbot serves as a direct rival to OpenAI's ChatGPT by handling a wide variety of text-processing tasks like summarization, search, collaborative writing, and coding. Users access Claude through a conversational chat interface that feels natural and provides detailed, easily understood answers.
The company differentiates Claude from other AI systems by focusing on safety and control, describing the model as helpful, honest, and harmless. Anthropic states that Claude produces much less harmful output and is highly steerable, allowing users to easily dictate the AI's personality, tone, and behavior. This level of customization makes Claude a strong candidate for customer service and other business solutions.
Anthropic offers Claude to businesses and nonprofits through a new API, though exact pricing remains undisclosed. The company provides two versions of the model: a high-performance version called Claude and a faster, lighter, and more cost-effective option called Claude Instant. These offerings emerge after several months of closed alpha testing with partners like Notion, Quora, and DuckDuckGo.