Anthropic launches new iPhone app and premium plan for businesses
Anthropic, a well-funded leader in generative AI, boasting a substantial $7.6 billion in funding, is unveiling a new paid offering tailored for enterprises, particularly those operating in tightly regulated sectors such as healthcare, finance, and legal, alongside launching a fresh iOS application.
Named “Team,” this enterprise-centric plan grants clientele enhanced access privileges to Anthropic’s Claude 3 suite of generative AI models, along with added administrative functionalities and refined user management features.
Scott White, Anthropic’s product lead, explained the rationale behind introducing the Team plan, citing heightened demand from enterprise clients seeking to leverage Claude’s cutting-edge AI capabilities across their organizational frameworks. He emphasized that the Team plan caters to businesses of diverse scales and sectors, striving to provide employees with controlled and reliable access to Claude’s language comprehension and generation capabilities.
Distinguishing itself from Anthropic’s existing premium offering, Pro, the Team plan promises “enhanced usage per user,” empowering individuals to notably amplify their engagement with Claude, potentially leading to a significant uptick in conversational interactions. While specific metrics are pending confirmation from Anthropic, Team subscribers can expect a generous 200,000-token (~150,000-word) context window, in addition to enjoying early access privileges to forthcoming features, a perk already enjoyed by Pro users.
Image Credits: Anthropic
The “context window,” essential for AI models, dictates the amount of input data considered before generating output. Models with larger contexts better retain recent conversations and grasp data flow, offering improved performance.
Team introduces new toggles for billing and user management, with upcoming collaboration features like citations for AI-generated claims and integrations with data repositories such as codebases and CRMs like Salesforce. Additionally, a collaborative canvas for AI-generated docs and projects is in development, promising enhanced teamwork.
In the short term, Team users gain tool use capabilities for Claude 3, enabling custom tools for diverse tasks, akin to OpenAI’s GPTs, such as fetching stock prices or weather reports.
White highlights that by integrating Claude deeply into collaborative workflows, the Team plan positions Anthropic to seize significant enterprise market share. As companies transition from AI experimentation to full-scale deployment for tangible business outcomes, Anthropic aims to meet this evolving demand.
Despite Anthropic’s ambitions, gaining business buy-in might prove challenging. Gartner reports that 49% of companies struggle to estimate and demonstrate AI project value internally, while McKinsey’s poll suggests that 66% of executives view generative AI as still years away from yielding substantial business results.
Image Credits: Anthropic
However, the corporate investment in generative AI is poised to skyrocket. IDC forecasts spending to surge to $15.1 billion by 2027, marking an eightfold increase from 2023, driving major players like OpenAI to intensify their focus on enterprise solutions.
OpenAI’s enterprise offering, ChatGPT Enterprise, boasts over 600,000 users, with recent enhancements tailored for corporate compliance and governance needs, such as a refined user interface for model assessment.
Anthropic enters the arena with its competitively priced Team plan at $30 per user per month, with a minimum of five seats. While OpenAI’s ChatGPT Enterprise pricing remains undisclosed, user reports suggest a range from $30 to $60 per user per month.
White underscores the value proposition of Anthropic’s Team plan, emphasizing its affordability and scalability, aligning with the company’s growth objectives while empowering enterprises to leverage AI strategically.
Anthropic’s robust financial backing, including a recent $4 billion investment from Amazon and $2 billion from Google, coupled with anticipated revenue surpassing $850 million by year-end, positions it strongly for expansion. This strategic move with Team reflects Anthropic’s trajectory toward market dominance, leveraging its strengths to sway businesses toward its generative AI solutions. As it builds momentum, Anthropic aims to demonstrate the superiority of its AI offerings, fostering organic growth and industry recognition.
An Anthropic iOS app
Anthropic unveiled another significant development on Wednesday: the launch of its iOS app. This move isn’t unexpected, considering the company’s recent focus on recruiting iOS engineers.
The iOS app grants users access to Claude 3, offering both free and upgraded Pro and Team access tiers. It seamlessly synchronizes with Anthropic’s web client and leverages Claude 3’s advanced vision capabilities to provide real-time analysis for uploaded and saved images. For instance, users can upload presentation charts and prompt Claude to summarize them, showcasing the app’s practical utility.
Image Credits: Anthropic
White emphasizes the iOS app’s seamless integration with the web version, ensuring consistent functionality such as chat history syncing and photo upload capabilities. The goal is to make Claude easily accessible and seamlessly integrated into users’ daily routines, whether for personal or professional purposes.
He underscores the app’s role in complementing Anthropic’s existing web interface and API offerings, providing users with an additional avenue to interact with the AI assistant. Moving forward, Anthropic remains committed to enhancing its technologies and exploring innovative ways to deliver value to users across different platforms and use cases, with a focus on mobile app development and functionality.