What Is Claude?

What Is Claude?

Claude is an AI assistant developed by Anthropic, a US-based AI safety company. The first version was released in March 2023, and between 2024 and 2025, three model families were introduced: Opus, Sonnet, and Haiku. As of June 2026, the primary models are Claude Opus 4.8, Sonnet 4.6, and Haiku 4.5.

Built on a large language model (LLM) foundation, Claude centers on natural language input and output while handling a diverse set of tasks including code and table comprehension, image understanding, and bulk processing of long documents.

What Can It Do?

Claude excels at the following types of tasks:

• Writing and editing: Drafting and refining emails, reports, social media posts, blog articles, and more
• Coding: Generating, debugging, and reviewing code in major languages including Python, JavaScript, and SQL
• Summarization and analysis: Summarizing long PDFs and web articles, interpreting data, and producing reports
• Q&A and research: Answering technical questions, organizing and comparing information
• Translation: Multilingual translation including Japanese-English and English-Japanese, with cultural nuance adjustments

How Does Claude Compare to ChatGPT and Gemini?

A defining characteristic of Claude is its safety training methodology known as Constitutional AI (CAI). The approach works by training the AI on a list of principles it must follow — a "Constitution" — to produce responses that are both ethical and genuinely useful. Additionally, the latest-generation Opus and Sonnet models support context windows of up to one million tokens (approximately 750,000 words), enabling Claude to process long documents and extended conversations without losing context.

Compared to ChatGPT (OpenAI) and Gemini (Google), Claude is widely recognized for its code accuracy and long-context handling. In recent versions, web search tools have become available by default, allowing Claude to reference real-time information (though the underlying training data still has a knowledge cutoff date).

Pricing and How to Get Started

You can start using Claude for free at claude.ai — just create an account and you're ready to go. The free plan (Claude Free) provides access to the Sonnet model with usage limits. For higher frequency use or access to more powerful models, Claude Pro is available at $20 USD/month (before tax).

For developers, an API and Claude Code (a CLI tool) are available. These are covered in detail in Levels 4 and 5.