Amazon-funded Anthropic launches AI app to compete with ChatGPT

An Amazon-backed firm that's pushing for safe and trustworthy artificial intelligence apps has released its Claude AI app for the iPhone and iPad — but not the Mac.

Apple could yet be the only generative AI producer whose LLMs are trained legally and ethically. However, Anthropic is among the firms aiming to establish best practices for the industry, and now its work can be used on iOS with Claude 3.

"Claude is designed to help individuals— and now teams— harness the power of the industry's most advanced AI models," says the firm in a blog post. "Whether you need a partner for deep work, a knowledgeable expert, a creative collaborator, or an assistant that's available instantly, Claude augments every employee's capabilities and enables businesses to achieve new levels of productivity to drive better results."

Previously available as an online service, the new iOS app is free to download, but doesn't work on the Mac. It's also free to use within limits that vary depending on the size and complexity of requests.

Those requests can include analyzing photographs from a user's library, or taken live with the iPhone's camera.

Anthropic says that users can ask 45 messages every 5 hours, so around 9 questions per hour. The company also says that upgrading to Claude Pro for $20 increases that limit five fold.

At the same time, Anthropic has released Claude for Teams, which again increases how many queries can be asked per user. Claude for Teams costs $30 per user, per month, and requires at least 5 members in the team.

Claude on iOS follows many previous generative AI tools for the iPhone, starting with ChatGPT, but also including Gemini from Google, and Microsoft's Copilot.

Anthropic was founded by ex-OpenAI engineers and has received funding from Amazon, Salesforce and Google, among others.

Apple is known to have developed an in-house generative AI app called Ajax. It's also expected to announce AI features for iOS 18 at WWDC on June 10.