Claude is a series of large language models (LLMs) developed by the American software company Anthropic. The first version was released as an AI-based chatbot in March 2023, marking Anthropic's entry into the competitive field of generative artificial intelligence. Claude is designed with a focus on safety and ethical compliance, using a technique called constitutional training that Anthropic developed to align model behavior with a set of principles. The models are also used in AI-assisted software development, with Anthropic selling agentic tools such as Claude Code, a terminal coding agent, and Claude Cowork, a similar tool for non-programmers.
The Claude model family has evolved through several generations. Since Claude 3, each generation has typically been released in three sizes: Haiku (the least capable), Sonnet, and Opus (the most capable). In 2026, Anthropic released an additional model named Claude Mythos to a select group of companies and organizations, followed by Claude Fable, a version of Mythos with stricter safeguards, made available to the general public. This tiered release strategy allows Anthropic to cater to different performance and cost requirements while maintaining a consistent safety framework.
Constitutional Training and Safety Design
Anthropic's constitutional training approach distinguishes Claude from other LLMs. Instead of relying solely on human feedback, the model is trained using a constitution - a set of explicit rules and principles that guide its behavior. This technique aims to improve ethical and legal compliance by giving the model a clear framework for decision-making. The constitution covers topics such as harm avoidance, honesty, and respect for user autonomy. This design philosophy positions Claude as an ethical alternative in the AI landscape, appealing to organizations that prioritize responsible AI deployment.
The safety focus extends to the model's deployment. Anthropic has implemented measures to prevent misuse, including restrictions on certain types of content and monitoring for harmful outputs. However, these safeguards have also led to tensions with government entities. In February 2026, the United States Department of Defense designated Anthropic a "supply chain risk," and federal agencies were ordered to phase out Claude after the company refused to remove contractual prohibitions on using the model for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. A federal judge blocked the designation in March 2026 and permanently set it aside in August 2026 as unconstitutional retaliation.
Claude Chatbot and Features
Claude functions as a generative AI chatbot accessible through various interfaces. In June 2024, Anthropic introduced artifacts, a feature that allows Claude to generate and interact with code snippets and documents within a conversation. This capability enhances productivity by enabling users to create and refine content directly in the chat environment. In 2025, Anthropic added a web search feature to Claude, allowing the model to access up-to-date information from the internet.
Subscription services provide additional access to Claude models. Claude Pro and Claude Max are individual plans, with Max offering higher usage limits at an additional cost. Grouped subscriptions include Claude Team and Claude Enterprise, designed for organizational use. According to card-spend data from Ramp, the share of businesses on its platform paying for Anthropic products rose 4.9 percentage points in February 2026, reaching 24.4% - the largest monthly gain Ramp had recorded for the company. This growth reflects increasing enterprise adoption of Claude.
Chat Sharing and Privacy Concerns
A notable Claude feature allows users to share chats with anyone who has a link. In September 2025, Forbes reported that hundreds of shared Claude chats had appeared in Google Search results, following similar incidents involving OpenAI's ChatGPT and xAI's Grok. This raised privacy concerns, as shared chats could contain sensitive information. In July 2026, shared chats and Artifacts were again found to be indexed by Google. The BBC counted more than 200 such chats, some containing health records and corporate documents. The affected chats were those whose links had been posted on the public internet. Technical analysis suggested that a robots.txt rule blocking crawlers from shared-chat pages also prevented them from reading the noindex directive meant to keep pages out of search results. Anthropic said the listings had been removed.
Application Programming Interface and Computer Use
Claude is also provided through an application programming interface (API), enabling developers to integrate the model into their own applications. In October 2024, Anthropic introduced the "computer use" feature, by which an application can call the Claude API to attempt to give navigational control of the application via Claude's interpretation of screen content and simulation of keyboard and mouse input. This capability allows Claude to interact with graphical user interfaces, expanding its utility beyond text-based tasks.
Claude Code and Agentic Tools
Claude Code, released in February 2025, is an agentic command line tool that delegates coding tasks from the terminal using natural language prompts. It was made generally available in May 2025 alongside Claude 4. Based on enterprise adoption, Anthropic reported a 5.5x increase in Claude Code revenue by July. On October 20, 2025, Anthropic launched a web version of Claude Code and a sandboxing feature. Coinciding with performance improvements tied to Claude Opus 4.5, Claude Code went viral during the 2025-2026 winter holidays when people had time to experiment with it, including many non-programmers who used it for vibe coding.
Claude Code has also been used by cybercriminals. In August 2025, Anthropic reported that cybercriminals it designated "GTG-2002" had used Claude Code in a data-extortion campaign against at least 17 organizations. In November 2025, Anthropic said that in September a China-based cybercrime group had used Claude Code to automate 80-90% of its espionage cyberattacks against 30 organizations. Despite these incidents, Claude Code is used by Microsoft, Google, and was used by OpenAI employees until August 2025, when Anthropic revoked OpenAI's API access, calling it "a direct violation of our terms of service." In February 2026, Anthropic introduced Claude Code Security, which reviews codebases to identify vulnerabilities. In March 2026, the source code for the Claude Code command-line interface application was leaked, revealing multiple upcoming features and models.
In May 2026, Anthropic introduced "Dreaming," a research-preview feature of its Managed Agents API that consolidates an agent's persistent memory between sessions by merging duplicates and removing stale entries. A memory consolidation feature called autoDream had been identified in the March source code leak.
Claude in Chrome and Cowork
In August 2025, Anthropic released Claude for Chrome, a Google Chrome extension that lets Claude browse websites, click and fill forms on the user's behalf. It launched as a pilot for 1,000 Max subscribers. Anthropic said prompt-injection attacks succeeded 11.2% of the time after mitigations. It became generally available in August 2026.
Claude Cowork is a tool similar to Claude Code but with a graphical user interface, aimed at non-technical users. It was released in January 2026 as a "research preview." Cowork is available as a desktop application for Mac and Windows and through a web interface. It provides Claude with access to a sandboxed shell and to user-selected folders on the local file system, allowing the model to read, write and edit files, execute code, and chain multi-step tasks within a single conversation, such as organizing files on a user's computer or generating documents from material in a local folder. A Wall Street Journal reporter who tested the tool noted user concerns about granting an AI agent broad access to a personal computer. An early user reported that, after asking Cowork to organize the files on the desktop of his wife's computer, it deleted all the family photos, requiring the restoration of the images from an iCloud backup.
In February 2026, Anthropic announced a wider enterprise release of Cowork, adding connectors for services such as Google Drive, Gmail, Docusign and FactSet, and customizable plugins for domains including financial analysis, engineering and human resources. The company described the update as a transition into an "enterprise-grade product." In March 2026, Anthropic added Dispatch, which lets users send Cowork tasks from a phone to their computer, and allows Claude to operate programs on the user's computer, such as web browsers or spreadsheet applications, to carry out tasks. According to developers, Cowork was mostly built by Claude Code. In August 2026, Cowork was made available in a sidebar of the Chrome browser.
Claude Design
Claude Design is a tool released by Anthropic, though details about its specific features and release date are limited. It is part of Anthropic's broader effort to expand Claude's capabilities beyond text and code into creative and design-oriented applications. The tool likely leverages Claude's generative abilities to assist with design tasks, though further information is not yet publicly available.
Market Position and Impact
Claude has established itself as a significant player in the artificial intelligence landscape, competing with models from OpenAI and Google DeepMind. Its emphasis on safety and ethical design has attracted customers in regulated industries, while its agentic tools have expanded its use cases. The company's growth, as indicated by Ramp data, suggests strong market acceptance. However, the security incidents involving shared chats and cybercriminal use of Claude Code highlight ongoing challenges in balancing utility with safety. Anthropic's legal battle with the Department of Defense underscores the broader societal debates about AI governance and the limits of corporate responsibility.