Anthropic: Claude can now also access the Internet
Anthropic's AI chatbot gets access to the web. Sources are prominently cited and linked.
A sketched hand holds the world.
(Image: Anthropic)
In order to provide "more up-to-date and relevant answers", Anthropic's AI chatbot now has access to the internet. Until now, Claude was actually limited to training data. Other chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Meta AI and Mistral have been able to access the internet for some time now. However, Claude's answers are structured slightly differently.
The chatbot responds to questions with a short continuous text, which also contains links to the sources directly below. This seems to be more prominent than with ChatGPT, for example. Answers also include direct quotes from websites, which should make verification easier for users, writes Anthropic. It is a "conversational format". The search cannot yet be tested, so for the time being only images in the blog post provide information about the structure.
In a blog post, Anthropic describes how the new web search can be used. For example, sales teams could use it to analyze trends, financial analysts could display market data and quarterly figures, scientists could find relevant literature and anyone who wants to store can compare products, prices and reviews. Anthropic only accesses the web, unlike Google, which uses a gigantic collection of knowledge. Millions of products are stored in the Knowledge Graph, as well as information on opening times and facts such as the height of the Eiffel Tower.
The web search in Claude is initially available as a paid preview and is also limited to the USA. However, this is set to change soon, when Claude can also be used in other countries and in the free version. The AI model behind it is Claude 3.7 Sonnet.
Anthropic is committed to developing a trustworthy and secure AI. It is unclear why Claude has only now been given access to the web. The web search may make the answers more up-to-date, but they may still be inaccurate or riddled with hallucinations. The problem with all AI web searches is that the people who use them visit far fewer of the websites from which the information originates. As a result, website operators generally miss out on clicks and the associated revenue from advertising on the site. This is a business model that has prevailed on the internet in recent years, but is now facing change. Perplexity, for example, is talking about developing a new system in which the use of content is paid for. However, the model is not yet very sophisticated. Shortly after the launch of Copilot, Microsoft also talked about giving publishers a share of advertising revenue. This also seems to be stalling.
(emw)