Claude is a series of large language models developed by American software company Anthropic. Claude was released as an AI-based chatbot in March 2023. It is also used in AI-assisted software development.
Claude is trained using "constitutional AI", a technique developed by Anthropic to improve ethical and legal compliance (AI alignment). Since Claude 3, each generation has typically been released in three sizes, from least to most capable: Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus. An additional model named Claude Mythos was released to a handful of companies in 2026.
US federal agencies started phasing out the use of Claude after Anthropic refused to remove contractual prohibitions on the use of Claude for mass domestic surveillance and fully-autonomous weapons. Following the refusal, the Department of Defense (DoD) designated the company a "supply chain risk" and barred all U.S. private military contractors, suppliers, and partners from doing business with the firm. On March 26, 2026, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction against the DoD's designation.
Claude is an AI chatbot similar to ChatGPT, capable of writing, coding, conducting research, and having conversations. In June 2024, Anthropic released the Artifacts feature, allowing users to generate and interact with code snippets and documents. In October 2024, Anthropic released the "computer use" feature, allowing Claude to attempt to navigate computers by interpreting screen content and simulating keyboard and mouse input. In 2025, Anthropic added a web search feature to Claude. In March 2026, Anthropic added an AI agent feature that allows users to send prompts from a phone, with Claude being able to access programs on the user's computer, such as web browsers or spreadsheet applications, to carry out tasks.
Claude subscription plans offer higher usage limits and access to additional features such as Claude Code and Claude in Chrome. Besides a free tier, there are two individual Claude subscriptions: Claude Pro and Claude Max. Claude Max is more expensive, with 5 to 20 times higher usage limits. Grouped subscriptions include Claude Team and Claude Enterprise. Claude experienced significant growth in the business market, with software subscriptions growing 4.9% month over month in February 2026 while OpenAI's subscription share fell 1.5%.
