What is Claude?
Claude is Anthropic's AI assistant designed for thoughtful, nuanced responses. Key strengths: 200K token context window, extended thinking for complex problems, and calibrated honesty.
Getting Started
- Sign up at claude.ai
- Choose a plan: Free (Claude Sonnet), Pro ($20/mo for Opus + priority)
- Start a conversation: Claude excels at long-form analysis, coding, and writing
Key Features
Projects
Organize conversations with shared knowledge. Upload documents, set custom instructions, and maintain context across chats.
Extended Thinking
For complex problems, Claude can think before responding, showing its reasoning chain for math, logic, and multi-step analysis.
Artifacts
Claude creates interactive documents, code snippets, and visualizations directly in the chat.
When to Use Claude vs ChatGPT
- Long document analysis: Claude (200K context window)
- Creative writing: Claude (nuanced, less formulaic)
- Image generation: ChatGPT (DALL-E integration)
- Real-time info: ChatGPT (web browsing)
- Code review: Claude (detailed explanations)
Pro Tips
- Use Projects for recurring workflows
- Upload PDFs and let Claude extract key points
- Ask Claude to explain its reasoning for better outputs
- Try system prompts for consistent formatting