What Is Claude, Really?
Claude is an AI assistant made by Anthropic. You type or talk to it, and it responds. That part is simple. What makes Claude different from a Google search or a chatbot on a customer service page is that it can actually do work — draft a proposal, analyze a spreadsheet, summarize a 50-page document, or help you think through a strategy.
Think of it less like a search engine and more like a very knowledgeable colleague who is always available, never judges a question, and works as fast as you can type.
You can access Claude in several ways:
- claude.ai — the web interface, works in any browser
- Claude Desktop app — a native app for Mac and Windows
- Claude mobile app — iOS and Android
- Inside other tools — Slack, Google Sheets, your browser (more on those in later modules)
They all connect to the same Claude. Your conversations sync across devices — start on your laptop, pick up on your phone.
Understanding Models: Why It Matters
When people say "Claude," they're actually referring to a family of models with different capabilities. The two you need to know about:
Adaptive Thinking — Claude's Hidden Superpower
Claude Opus 4.6 introduced something called adaptive thinking. In plain terms: Claude now decides how hard to think based on how complex your question is.
Ask it what time zone Florida is in? It answers instantly. Ask it to compare two vendor proposals and recommend which one aligns better with your Q3 goals? It takes a moment to reason through the problem before responding.
You don't need to configure this. It just works. But knowing it exists helps explain why some responses come back immediately and others take a few seconds — Claude is proportioning its effort to match the difficulty of what you asked.
The 1 Million Token Context Window
This is one of the most practically useful features for business work. Claude can process up to 1 million tokens in a single conversation — that's roughly 700,000 words, or about 1,400 pages of text.
What does that mean in practice?
- Paste an entire contract and ask Claude to find the liability clauses
- Upload a 200-page annual report and ask for a summary of the financial risks
- Drop in six months of meeting notes and ask Claude to identify recurring themes
- Share your entire employee handbook and ask it to draft a policy update that's consistent with the existing tone
Most other AI tools choke on long documents. Claude handles them well.
Chat Claude vs. Agentic Claude
This is the most important distinction in the Claude ecosystem, and most people don't know it exists yet.
Chat Claude is what you get at claude.ai — a conversation interface. You type, it responds. It's reactive. You're driving.
Agentic Claude is what you get with tools like Claude Code Desktop, Cowork, and the Chrome Extension. In agentic mode, Claude doesn't just answer questions — it takes actions. It can browse the web, edit files on your computer, create spreadsheets, fill out forms, deploy websites, and run multi-step workflows while you do other things.
"Write me a summary of this document."
Claude writes the summary. You copy-paste it somewhere.
"Summarize this document, format it as a one-pager in Word, and save it to my Desktop."
Claude reads the doc, writes the summary, creates the Word file, and saves it. Done.
This module focuses on chat. The intermediate track covers the agentic tools. But knowing the distinction now helps you understand where all of this is headed — from answering questions to doing work.
Five Ways to Use Claude This Week
These aren't hypothetical. They're the kinds of tasks business people actually use Claude for every day.
1. Draft a Client Email
I need to follow up with a client who hasn't responded to our proposal in two weeks. The project is a website redesign for their restaurant. Keep the tone warm and professional — I don't want to pressure them, just check in. Two paragraphs max.
2. Analyze a Competitor
Here's the text from our competitor's "About" and "Services" pages. Compare their positioning to ours. What are they emphasizing that we're not? Where are we stronger? Give me 3-4 specific observations, not generic advice.
[Paste competitor's page text here]
[Paste your page text here]
3. Summarize Meeting Notes
Here are my raw notes from today's team meeting. Turn them into a clean summary with three sections: Key Decisions Made, Action Items (with who's responsible), and Open Questions. Keep it under one page.
[Paste your notes here]
4. Prepare for a Presentation
I'm presenting our Q1 results to the leadership team on Friday. The numbers are good overall but we missed our target in one area. Help me structure a 10-minute presentation that leads with the wins, addresses the miss honestly without being defensive, and ends with our plan for Q2. Audience is 6 VPs who care about bottom-line impact.
5. Review a Document for Issues
Review this vendor agreement for anything I should be concerned about. I'm a small business owner, not a lawyer. Flag anything that seems unusual, any clauses that heavily favor the vendor, and anything I should ask my attorney about before signing.
[Paste document text here]
Better Prompts, Better Results
The difference between a vague prompt and a good prompt is enormous. Here's a real example:
"Write me a marketing email."
Claude has to guess everything — who's it for? What product? What tone? What action do you want the reader to take? The result will be generic.
"Write a marketing email for our landscaping company's spring cleanup service. Audience is homeowners in Naples, FL. Tone: friendly and local, not corporate. Include a limited-time offer of 15% off if they book by March 15. Keep it under 150 words. Subject line options too."
Claude knows exactly what to produce. The result will be usable on the first try.
You don't need to memorize prompting frameworks. Just answer three questions before you type: Who is this for? What do I need back? What constraints matter?
What Claude Can't Do (Yet)
Being honest about limitations saves you time:
- Claude doesn't browse the internet in chat mode. It can't look up today's stock price or check a live website. (The Chrome Extension and some agentic tools can — that's covered in later modules.)
- Claude can be confidently wrong. It's excellent at reasoning but it can make things up, especially about specific facts, dates, or numbers. Always verify anything that matters.
- Claude's knowledge has a cutoff. It doesn't know about events that happened after its training data. For current events, you'll need to provide the information yourself.
- Claude can't remember across conversations (unless you use Projects or custom instructions). Each new conversation starts fresh.
Getting Started in 5 Minutes
- Go to claude.ai and sign up (free to start, Pro is $20/month)
- Pick any task you'd normally spend 15+ minutes on — an email, a document review, meeting prep
- Write a specific prompt using the pattern: context + what you need + constraints
- Iterate — if the first response isn't quite right, tell Claude what to change. "Make it shorter," "Less formal," "Focus more on the cost savings." This is a conversation, not a one-shot.
- Try the model selector — switch between Sonnet and Opus to feel the difference on a complex task
That's the foundation. Once you're comfortable with chat, everything else in this learning hub builds on top of it.