These Three Claude Premium AI Features Are Now Available for Free
Anthropic’s Claude is an AI bot that keeps a steady pace when it comes to delivering new features, and the latest big update sees three useful features coming to free users, after previously being exclusive to paid plans.
If you’re choosing between AIs and comparing the features available on free plans, it now makes more sense to choose Claude over a competitor like ChatGPT or Gemini for your next batch of AI tasks.
The three new features now available to free users on Claude are file creation, external plugins called Connectors, and instruction sets called Skills. Here’s how you can use them.
Creating files in Claude
Claude’s file creation capabilities let you create Word documents, PowerPoint slideshows, Excel spreadsheets, and PDFs right in a conversation. You can either provide the robot with all the text, data, and other information you want to include, have Claude make it all up himself, or something in between.
For example, if you have a long list of names and scores, Claude can put them into a spreadsheet for you. If you have a series of images, Claude can combine them into a PDF and describe them. You can enable it to analyze and visualize data, produce report-based presentations, and create summary documents.
A simple prompt can create a file in Claude.
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To enable file creation for your account, click your profile icon (bottom left) in Claude on the Web, then select Settings > Abilities and activate Executing code and creating files. Once done, simply ask Claude what type of file you want to create and what you want to include, providing all the necessary information (or telling the AI where to find it online).
As usual with these AI bots, the more detail and specificity you can provide, the better: the end result is then more likely to be closer to what you were aiming for. I managed to quickly find the results of a fictitious sports race and produce a spreadsheet. Although not the most demanding task, Claude accomplished it well.
Claude Connectors
Connectors can connect Claude to a variety of other apps, sites, and services: so if you want him to design something for you in Canva, or manage your messages in Slack, or find travel deals on Trivago, then Claude can do that for you. The full list of current connectors gives you an idea of what’s possible.
To access connectors from the Claude dialog box, click on the small + (more) in the lower left corner, then choose Add connectors. You can search for connectors by name and filter them by type and category. When you select the one you like, you will need to provide your account credentials and authorize Claude to access your account.
Use the connectors to connect Claude to other applications.
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The connectors of your choice are then available in the same submenu in the dialog box: you can add other plug-ins and remove existing ones from there. You can either select an app or specify the name in your prompt and Claude should understand what you mean. You can request trips, carry out searches and communicate via your connected services.
What do you think of it so far?
Connectors can give Claude some useful additional talents. With Canvas Connector, for example, I was able to create a basic illustration for a birthday party flyer, something the AI would not have been able to do on its own. I found access to be spotty though, perhaps a sign that many free users are now using these tools.
Claude’s skills
With Skills, you can “teach Claude how to perform specific tasks in a repeatable way” (in the words of the official support document). In old-school computer parlance, you might call them macros: batches of defined instructions that Claude can repeat every time you need to do something in a particular way.
Templates are a good example of this, whether they are emails or documents. Rather than just asking Claude to write an email for you, you can set some basic parameters for the job, including guidelines on tone, length and style, as well as crucial information (such as your contact details) that should always be included.
You have three options for creating skills.
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Click your account profile icon (bottom left) in Claude on the Web, then choose Settings > Abilities and click Add below SKILLS to start. You can create a skill through a conversation with Claude, by writing the instructions, or by uploading a skill file (which is handy for including additional elements such as code snippets, as described here).
I took the Create with Claude route for developing a basic way of summarizing PDF reports, with specific guidelines on the number of paragraphs and headings to use, and the tone of voice to apply. In the future, rather than typing these instructions every time I need to summarize something, I can simply invoke the skill.
