Claude AI Explained: How It Works and What You Can Do With It

Key takeaways

• Claude AI is a conversational AI assistant you can use for writing, analysis, coding, and working with long documents.
• It’s designed to help you understand context, break down complex tasks, and generate clear, structured responses.
• Compared with ChatGPT, Claude often works best when you need deep reasoning or support with long, detailed inputs.
• You can use it for everyday tasks, but it has limitations, including restricted web browsing and differences between free and paid versions.
• Giving Claude clear prompts and helpful context will improve your results.

Claude has quickly become one of the most talked-about AI assistants, often mentioned alongside tools like ChatGPT in discussions about writing, research, and coding. But despite the buzz, many people still aren’t sure what sets Claude apart.

With so many AI tools available today, it can be difficult to understand what each one does best. Knowing Claude’s strengths, limitations, and core capabilities can help you decide how—and when—to use it effectively.

This guide explains what Claude AI is, how it works behind the scenes, and how it compares to other popular AI assistants.

Table of contents

• What is Claude AI?
• How does Claude AI work?
• Claude AI vs. ChatGPT: What’s the difference?
• How to use Claude AI: 6 ways to get started
• Tips for getting better results with Claude
• Advantages of using Claude AI
• Disadvantages of using Claude AI
• Claude AI: A chatbot built for safety
• Claude AI FAQs

What is Claude AI?

Claude AI is a conversational assistant developed by Anthropic that helps you write, analyze information, and solve problems through natural dialogue. You interact with it by typing prompts or questions, and it responds in clear, structured language.

You can use Claude to draft content, summarize documents, explore new topics, answer questions, or get help with coding and research. Like other AI assistants, Claude generates responses based on patterns learned from large amounts of text, which allows it to follow your instructions and adapt to different types of requests.

Claude can also work with longer or more complex material, including uploaded documents, making it useful when you need help reviewing, organizing, or explaining information.

The name Claude AI may refer to the Claude chatbot you interact with, the underlying Claude models (such as Claude 3 and Claude 4), or the API developers use to integrate Claude into other tools.

While Claude can help with brainstorming ideas or generating content, you may want more options for ensuring your writing is polished, tailored to your audience, and in your authentic voice. This is where Grammarly comes in. As you write, Grammarly can not only help you brainstorm and draft like Claude, but it can also help you refine tone, make sure your points are clear and accurate, and even offer expert feedback. Grammarly’s AI writing agents can also proactively surface suggestions to you in the moment you need them, making for smoother workflows and better outcomes.

What is Anthropic AI (the company behind Claude AI)?

Claude was developed by Anthropic, an AI safety and research company based in San Francisco. Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI executives and researchers (the same people who developed ChatGPT and the image-generation tool DALL-E). The company focuses on building AI systems that are helpful, reliable, and easier for people to guide, with a strong emphasis on safety and clear reasoning.

How does Claude AI work?

Claude AI works by analyzing your prompts and generating responses using advanced language models trained to understand and produce humanlike text. While the technology behind it is complex, the experience is simple: You ask questions or give instructions, and Claude responds in a clear, conversational way.

Under the hood, Claude is powered by large language models (LLMs)—the same type of technology used by tools like ChatGPT and Grammarly. Here’s a simplified look at how it works:

It understands language using deep learning

Claude uses a deep learning architecture called a transformer, which helps it understand how words and ideas relate to one another. This allows it to interpret your prompts, follow instructions, and make sense of long or complex text.

It learns patterns from large amounts of text and code

The model is trained on extensive datasets of text and code. By seeing so many examples of how people write and communicate, it learns patterns that help it understand context and generate humanlike responses. Instead of memorizing information, it draws on these patterns to respond to whatever you ask.

It’s guided by built-in principles (Constitutional AI)

One element that sets Claude apart is something called Constitutional AI. This is a set of written principles Anthropic uses to guide how the model evaluates and shapes its responses. These principles encourage Claude to be helpful, honest, and safe and help reduce the risk of harmful or misleading outputs.

It can handle long documents and extended context

Claude has a large context window, which works like a form of short-term memory. This allows it to read, analyze, and refer back to large amounts of text at once—making it especially useful for long documents, detailed instructions, or ongoing conversations.

It can break down complex tasks step by step

Newer versions of Claude are designed to reason through problems in stages. This helps it follow multistep instructions, explain its thinking, and guide you through complex processes more clearly.

It can connect to tools and support advanced workflows

In newer versions, Claude can assist with longer, more involved projects. It can stay focused across multiple steps, work with large amounts of information, and build on earlier parts of a conversation, making it helpful when you need more than a quick answer.

Claude AI vs. ChatGPT: What’s the difference?

If you’re just getting to know Claude, it’s natural to compare it to ChatGPT, another well-known conversational AI system built on similar underlying technology. Both tools are powered by LLMs and can perform many of the same tasks, which often puts them in the same conversation. But despite these similarities, they differ in how they’re trained, how they process information, and the types of work they tend to excel at. Below is a high-level look at several core areas where their designs and capabilities diverge.

Training method

Claude and ChatGPT are both trained on large datasets of text, but they use different alignment techniques.

• Claude relies on Anthropic’s Constitutional AI framework, where a written set of principles guides how the model learns to evaluate and refine responses.
• ChatGPT uses reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), in which human reviewers rank outputs to shape model behavior.

These different approaches influence each system’s tone, safety behavior, and how they handle ambiguous requests.

Context window

A context window refers to how much information an AI model can take in and work with at once.

• Claude is known for supporting very large context windows, allowing you to process long documents, large codebases, or multi-chapter text, all within a single prompt.
• ChatGPT also offers expanded context windows in newer models, though historically the capacity has been smaller.

This could make a big difference if you’re dealing with long research papers, legal contracts, or conversations that span many messages.

Reasoning

Both systems can analyze information and solve problems, but they do it in slightly different ways.

• Claude often breaks problems down step by step and gives more detailed, structured explanations.
• ChatGPT tends to jump more quickly to an answer and can adapt its approach to many different topics or styles.

You’ll notice these differences most when you’re working through multistep instructions, troubleshooting a problem, or asking for a detailed explanation.

Coding

Both Claude and ChatGPT support programming tasks, but they excel in different ways.

• Claude performs well when reading, reviewing, or explaining large codebases, partly due to its larger context capacity.
• ChatGPT is widely used for generating new code, completing snippets, and assisting with programming tasks across many languages.

Your ideal choice depends on whether you spend more time reviewing complex code or writing new code on the fly.

Processing speed

Both tools respond quickly, but their speed can vary depending on the model and the complexity of the task.

• Claude may take a more deliberate, step-by-step approach when working through multistep problems.
• ChatGPT often replies very quickly, especially in conversational or creative situations.

These differences come down to each system’s design priorities, and you may notice them depending on the type of work you need to do.

Best fit for different use cases

While both systems are versatile, certain tasks tend to align better with either one tool or the other.

• Claude is often used for document analysis, summarization, long-form writing, and tasks that benefit from careful reasoning.
• ChatGPT is commonly used for creative writing, brainstorming, interactive conversation, and generating code.

At a glance comparison

If you’re deciding whether to start with Claude AI or ChatGPT, here’s a quick, at-a-glance comparison of how the two systems differ across a few core dimensions:

How to use Claude AI: 6 ways to get started

Claude AI can help you with a wide range of tasks—including writing and research, planning, coding, and visual analysis. You can work directly in the Claude interface by chatting with natural language prompts or by uploading files such as PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets, images, and more.

Below are some of the most common ways you can use Claude AI.

1. Writing and editing

Claude excels at generating and refining written content. You can give it a format, explain what you want to accomplish, and specify a tone or style—and Claude will produce polished, coherent text that you can continue iterating on.

Here are some things you can do:

• Draft emails, memos, proposals, or letters.
• Create outlines for stories, essays, or articles.
• Generate lists (e.g., chores, packing lists, or brainstorming prompts).
• Improve clarity, tone, or organization in something you’ve already written.
• Rewrite text to fit different audiences or reading levels.

If you want AI support without pausing what you’re doing, Grammarly is built right into the tools you already use for work. Unlike Claude, which you typically have to consult in a separate tab or app, Grammarly works directly in the documents, emails, and apps where you’re already typing—proactively highlighting where your work could be clearer, stronger, or more engaging. It guides you through every stage—from early ideas to polished drafts—tailoring suggestions to your specific context, audience, and goals, and adapting to your authentic voice over time. The result is in-the-moment feedback that helps you improve clarity, tone, and impact without breaking your flow or switching tools.

2. Reasoning and research

Claude is designed for deep reasoning. You can use it to talk through tricky decisions, explore complex ideas, or learn about new topics. It’s especially helpful when you want to understand something step by step.

Try using Claude to:

• Explore philosophical questions, thought experiments, or hypotheticals.
• Analyze pros and cons when you’re making a decision (like choosing a major or planning a move).
• Break down complicated concepts—such as math problems or scientific processes.
• Get explanations of historical events, cultural traditions, or unfamiliar subject matter.
• Walk through how to complete practical tasks (e.g., how to mount a TV or make fresh pasta).

You can use it for simple explanations, expert-level detail, or anything in between.

3. Coding help

Claude can write, debug, and explain code in most major programming languages. Whether you’re learning to code or working on a complex project, Claude can help you reason through technical problems.

You can use Claude to:

• Understand what a snippet of code does.
• Improve or modernize older code.
• Generate new code for a specific function or workflow.
• Identify potential bugs or inefficiencies.
• Learn best practices for structuring or organizing code.

You can also combine this with file uploads—for example, by sending Claude a script to analyze.

4. Summarizing and analyzing files

Claude is compatible with PDFs, TXTs, CSVs, DOCX files, transcripts, and more. Once you upload a file, Claude can summarize it, identify key themes, or transform the content into a different format.

You might use this to:

• Upload a long report or novel and ask for the main points.
• Paste meeting notes and get a summary for your team.
• Turn a long email into a list of required action items.
• Extract insights from documents with charts, tables, or complex data.

This makes it easy to digest large amounts of information quickly.

5. Visual understanding

Claude can interpret images and help you make sense of visual content. Simply upload an image and describe what you want to know or do.

For example, you can:

• Transcribe handwritten notes.
• Upload a photo of a landmark and ask for historical context.
• Use an image as inspiration for a story or creative project.
• Ask Claude to describe items in a photo for accessibility.

6. Handling multistep tasks

Claude can also take on more advanced, multistep tasks that require planning and coordination. Instead of responding to one prompt at a time, it can carry out a sequence of connected actions across files, tools, or stages of a project, an emerging capability often referred to as agentic AI.

You might use these multistep abilities to:

• Research a topic across several sources and produce a structured report.
• Break a large project into phases with milestones and next steps.
• Write and execute code, review the output, and refine it automatically.
• Pull information from multiple documents and combine it into a single summary.
• Automate repetitive tasks, like converting files into standard formats or generating status updates.

Tips for getting better results with Claude

You can dramatically improve Claude’s output by adjusting how you interact with it. Here are some guidelines to help you get the most out of your prompts:

Be specific

Tell Claude what you want, who the audience is, the tone or style you prefer, and any constraints (length, format, examples, etc.).

Refine your prompts

It’s normal to iterate. If the first answer isn’t quite right, don’t give up! Tell Claude what to change—shorter, more formal, more creative, simpler language, different angle, etc.

Provide context

Upload reference files, paste relevant excerpts, or explain the situation. The more context Claude has, the better it can tailor its response.

Ask for step-by-step reasoning

If you’re working through something complex, you can request explanations, outlines, or step-by-step thinking.

Use follow-up questions

Claude is conversational. Continue the dialogue, ask for alternatives, or explore variations until you get what you need.

Advantages of using Claude AI

Claude comes with several advantages that make it useful for exploring ideas, working through information, and getting support on a variety of tasks. Its design emphasizes safety, context understanding, and reliable responses—helping you use AI more confidently and effectively.

• Prioritizes safe, reliable use: Claude is built with a strong focus on safety and ethical behavior. Its training approach helps reduce harmful or misleading outputs and encourages more consistent, trustworthy responses.
• Handles long and complex content: Claude can work with large amounts of text while staying coherent and on track. This makes it useful for reviewing documents, digging into detailed topics, or drafting longer pieces that require sustained context.
• Adapts to your needs over time: With memory features, Claude can recall helpful details from past interactions—like project context or personal preferences—making future conversations feel smoother and more relevant.
• Supports multistep and complex tasks: Claude can follow a series of related instructions, such as reviewing multiple documents or breaking down a larger request into smaller steps. This is helpful when a task requires more structure or coordination.
• Delivers fast, efficient responses: Claude responds promptly and processes information quickly, making it useful when you need clarity fast or are working under time pressure.

Disadvantages of using Claude AI

Like all generative AI platforms, Claude has some limitations to keep in mind. Understanding these drawbacks helps you use the tool more effectively and know when to verify outputs or turn to alternative solutions.

• May generate inaccurate information: Claude can sometimes produce incorrect or outdated responses, known as hallucinations. While its training emphasizes accuracy and safety, it doesn’t verify facts in real time. Always fact-check critical information, especially for academic research, legal matters, or business decisions where precision matters.
• Requires web search to be enabled for current information: Claude’s knowledge base includes information through early 2025. While paid users can access web search capabilities for real-time information, this feature must be manually enabled in profile settings and doesn’t automatically activate for every query. Free tier users don’t have access to web search at all.
• Has usage limits and costs: You might experience message caps and temporary rate limiting, particularly with newer models like Claude Sonnet 4.5. Free tier users face stricter message limits that can interrupt extended work sessions. For organizations using Claude’s API, costs can scale quickly at $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens.
• Lacks built-in image generation: Claude focuses primarily on text-based tasks and cannot generate images. If you need a platform that handles both text and image creation in one interface, you’ll need to use Claude alongside a separate image generation tool.
• Offers limited plug-and-play customization: While developers can integrate Claude through its API, there isn’t a user-friendly customization marketplace like ChatGPT’s custom GPTs. There are no pre-built, accessible tools for specific tasks like fitness tracking or data visualization that nontechnical users can simply activate.

Tools like Grammarly can help address some of these limitations by providing reliable writing assistance that works directly in your existing workflows—whether you’re drafting emails, reports, or other professional documents—without switching between applications or worrying about usage caps.

Claude AI: A chatbot built for safety

Claude is a generative AI chatbot built with ethics and safety in mind. Because it incorporates the Constitutional AI model, Claude follows a set of principles to generate helpful, honest, and harmless responses.

Claude’s code of ethics, speed, and ability to process large volumes of information enable you to efficiently leverage AI for complex analysis and content generation. However, it’s important to be mindful of potential inaccuracies and limited capabilities.

Claude is one of the many generative AI tools disrupting how we create, research, and interact with the systems we use. These tools are constantly changing and evolving. As we enter the era of agentic AI, tools like Claude are handling multistep tasks, while platforms like Grammarly are integrating agentic capabilities directly into everyday workplace tools to help users accomplish sophisticated writing and communication goals more smoothly and efficiently than before. To learn more about this shift, explore Grammarly’s guides on agentic collaboration and agentic AI.

Claude AI FAQs

What does Claude AI do?

Claude helps with various tasks including writing, analysis, coding, math, research, teaching, and creative projects. It can answer questions, help solve problems, write code, assist with editing and writing, and explain various topics. Claude also offers agentic capabilities and tool use for multistep workflows and autonomous task execution. You can also engage in conversations with Claude, similar to how you would with another person.

How did Claude get its name?

The name Claude is in reference to mathematician Claude Shannon, who was known as the “father of the Information Age.”

What is Claude Sonnet?

Claude Sonnet is one of Anthropic’s latest Claude AI models, known for improved speed, reasoning, and tool use. Claude Sonnet 4.5, released in 2025, is currently Anthropic’s most powerful model, offering coding, agentic workflows, and the ability to maintain focus on complex tasks for over 30 hours.

What is Claude Opus?

Claude Opus is Anthropic’s premium Claude AI model designed for enterprise and large-scale analytical work. Claude Opus 4.1 supports extended context windows and high accuracy for complex projects requiring maximum intelligence and reasoning capabilities. While Claude Sonnet 4.5 has surpassed Opus in many benchmarks, Opus remains valuable for specific use cases optimized for its capabilities.

Is Claude AI better than ChatGPT?

The answer depends on your specific needs. Claude tends to excel at tasks that require deep reasoning, working with long documents, or breaking down complex problems step by step. It’s especially strong for analysis-heavy work, technical writing, and projects that span multiple files or stages.

ChatGPT may be the better choice if you want built-in web browsing, image or voice capabilities, or access to the custom GPT ecosystem. It’s also widely used for creative writing, brainstorming, and generating new code quickly.

Is Claude AI free?

Yes. Claude provides a free version with access to its main features, making it easy to explore how the model works. If you find yourself needing more power—like bigger uploads, longer conversations, or more advanced models—you can upgrade to a paid plan for expanded capabilities.

How do I get access to Claude AI?

To start using Claude, simply sign up for an account on Anthropic’s website. After you log in, you can use Claude directly in the browser and choose between the free version or a paid plan for more advanced features.

How does Claude AI differ from other AI chatbots?

Like many AI chatbots, Claude can generate content, answer questions, and assist with tasks—but it’s designed with a stronger emphasis on long-context processing and structured reasoning. This makes it well suited for analyzing documents, solving multistep problems, and providing detailed explanations, while other chatbots may focus more on browsing, creative writing, or rapid code generation.

Grammarly also offers an AI chat experience built directly into your writing workflow. You can type a prompt straight into the chat text area—without leaving your document or email—and get tailored suggestions, drafts, and rewrites that reflect your context and preferred voice. Because it draws on what you’re already working on, Grammarly’s AI chat can refine tone, clarify meaning, and help you move from rough ideas to polished writing faster, all while keeping you in the flow.