AI Lineup
Claude
by Anthropic
Particularly strong at reading long documents, explaining things clearly, and tasks that need careful reasoning.
Free + PaidChatbotMultimodal
Last checked: 21 September 2026
The details
- Context Window
- 200,000 tokens — big enough to read and discuss an entire legal document or lengthy research report
- Cost
- Free tier available · Paid plan for more usage.
- Open Source?
- No — proprietary
- Input / Output
- TextImages inFiles & PDFs
Best for
- Long documents & reports
- Nuanced careful writing
- Research & analysis
- Thoughtful Q&A
Kevin’s take
“My personal go-to for anything involving a lot of text. Paste in a 40-page report and ask questions about it — it handles it beautifully.”
— Kevin, formerly of IT Support
Privacy snapshot
Use With CautionPrivacy risk: Medium
AI assistant from Anthropic. Everyday conversation, writing, analysis, code, and long documents, plus Artifacts: side-panel documents and small interactive tools you can edit, download, and optionally publish.
See what Claude does with your data →Related reading
From the AI Glossary
- AnthropicThe AI company behind Claude. It was founded in 2021 by a group who left OpenAI, with AI safety as a stated priority. It's one of the small number of companies building the most capable models, and it positions itself as the more careful voice in the field. Whether that reputation holds is a fair thing to ask, but the intent is part of its identity.
- Artifact (Claude)In Claude, Anthropic’s chatbot, an Artifact is a substantial piece of work Claude builds in its own side panel instead of burying it in the scrolling chat. It might be a real document, checklist, diagram, simple webpage, or small interactive tool. You can edit it, step through versions, download it, and, if you choose, share or publish it with a link. Ordinary short replies stay in the chat; Artifacts are for the bigger thing you might want to keep using.
- ChatbotSoftware you interact with through a conversation-style interface: you type or speak, and it replies. Chatbots are not necessarily AI; older and simpler ones follow predefined rules, decision trees, or scripts. Modern chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok use large language models, which makes them much more flexible and capable than the rule-based website chat boxes that came before them.
- Claude CodeClaude Code is Anthropic’s agentic coding tool: software that works with a real code project, reads the files already there, and can edit code, run commands, and handle git-style workflows from plain-language instructions. The terminal is the classic version, but Anthropic also offers it in IDEs, desktop, web, Slack, mobile handoff, and automation surfaces. The important distinction is this: ordinary Claude chat can talk about code; Claude Code is built to do development steps in the project folder, with permission modes that control when it may change files or run tools.
From the Unspun Blog
- You shouldn't have to learn Spark vs Chat vs Cowork to send an emailAI apps keep asking ordinary people to choose between Spark, Daily Brief, Chat, Work, and Cowork. The app should do that homework.
- What's the Actual Difference Between ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude?The Tinkerer opened all three up. They're more similar than the marketing suggests, and different in ways that actually matter.
- Do I Need to Pay for AI?Most people paying $20 a month for AI could have stayed on the free plan a bit longer. Here's what's actually different, and when it matters.
Knowing the tool is just the start.
We teach non-tech people how to actually use AI — what to ask, how to ask it, and what to do with the answers. Tutorials, prompts, plain English. All of it.
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