Claude is a chatbot developed by AI startup Anthropic that can generate text content, including computer code, and carry on conversations with users, similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. Anthropic claims Claude is differentiated from other chatbots due to its use of “Constitutional AI” a unique AI training method where ethical principles guide a model’s outputs.
Anthropic is one of the most prominent AI companies in the world, having received billions of dollars from tech giants like Google and Amazon. Its stated goal is to make Claude and future artificial intelligence systems more “helpful, harmless and honest” by putting responsibility, ethics and overall safety at the forefront.
Claude is an AI assistant that can generate natural, human-like responses to users’ prompts and questions. It can respond to text or image-based inputs and is available on the web or through the Claude mobile app.
Claude Large Language Models
Anthropic offers a suite of AI models that have their own unique set capabilities: (currently at Claude 4.5/4.7 as of April 2026)
- Claude Mythos Preview is one of Anthropic’s most advanced frontier models, specifically designed with a leap in reasoning and autonomous agentic capabilities. It is proficient at identifying and exploiting thousands of high-severity vulnerabilities across all major operating systems and web browsers, a capability so powerful that the model is restricted to a gated research preview and is available only to select partners.
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the most capable Sonnet model, rivaling Opus model intelligence while maintaining the speed and affordability of the Sonnet line. It features upgrades in coding, agentic planning and computer use capabilities, supported by a 1 million-token context window in beta for handling complex enterprise workflows.
- Claude Opus 4.6 is one of Anthropic’s most advanced models, featuring a 1 million-token context window in beta and an “adaptive thinking” mode that can pick up on contextual clues for how to use extended thinking. Opus 4.6 excels at complex coding, enterprise workflows and autonomous tasks, offering performance gains in research and financial analysis.
- Claude Haiku 4.5 is a small model that provides similar levels of coding performance to Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Sonnet 4 models, but at one-third of the cost and over twice the speed. It showed a lower overall rate of misaligned behaviors compared to other Claude 4 models, making it Anthropic’s safest model at the time of its release.
- Claude 4 Family launched with the Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4 models, which delivered major gains in coding, reasoning and agentic performance. Opus 4 led on benchmarks like SWE-bench and Terminal-bench and excels at long, complex workflows, while Sonnet 4 (which powers GitHub Copilot) offers enhanced instruction following and efficiency.
Sonnet 4.6, Sonnet 4.5 and Haiku 4.5 are available to use for free in Claude, and most models are available to access on the Anthropic API, Amazon Bedrock and Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platforms.
Claude Agentic Tools
- Claude Code is an agentic coding tool that lives in a device’s command-line interface (CLI) or integrated development environment (IDE)Able to read, understand and write code, it can be particularly helpful in automating work tasks, allowing development teams to test and debug their codebase and generate new lines of code.Nontechnical users have also adopted Claude Code to vibe code simple applications or automate workflows.
- Claude Cowork is a scaled down version of Claude Code. Instead of working from a computer terminal, Cowork only works in designated folders and can help organize files, create reports and automate workflows. It also features a simpler user experience, allowing individuals to dictate tasks directly from the Claude desktop application.