Claude gets a major upgrade: Anthropic brings chat, work tools and design into one place

Anthropic is making a major change to Claude, bringing its chat, work and design capabilities together in one interface.

The company announced on Wednesday that users will no longer need to decide which Claude tool to open for a particular task. Instead, Claude will automatically select the capabilities it needs. The update also introduces Claude Docs and Claude Slides in beta, allowing users to create documents, presentations and visual designs directly from a conversation. The move puts Anthropic in a growing race with OpenAI to turn AI chatbots into everyday work platforms.

Claude will decide which tool to use

Until now, Claude users could have to switch between different experiences depending on what they wanted to create. Anthropic says that is changing. The company's chat and Cowork tools are being combined, while Claude Design is being integrated into the main interface. That means a user could start with a simple request, develop the content, turn it into a document or presentation, and refine the visual output without jumping between separate tools. For people using AI for work, the change could make Claude feel less like a chatbot and more like a digital workspace.

Claude Docs and Slides arrive in beta

The new tools are designed to handle some of the tasks usually associated with office software. Claude Docs can be used to create documents, while Claude Slides can generate presentations. Users can also create visual designs through the integrated Claude Design experience. Anthropic says documents can be exported to Google Docs or Microsoft Word. Presentations can be exported as PowerPoint or PDF files. That could make the tools particularly useful for workers who already use AI to draft reports, prepare presentations or turn ideas into finished work.

Anthropic takes on OpenAI

The timing is significant. Anthropic's update follows OpenAI's launch of ChatGPT Work in July, which brought its chatbot and Codex coding capabilities together. Both companies are increasingly competing for enterprise customers as well as ordinary users who want AI to complete tasks rather than simply answer questions.

The shift is also changing what users expect from AI assistants.
Instead of asking a chatbot for text and then manually moving that content into Word or PowerPoint, users are increasingly being offered a workflow in which the AI helps create the finished file itself.

Anthropic says the new Claude experience will begin rolling out to Pro and Max subscribers on web, desktop and mobile over the coming weeks. Team and Free users will receive access later.