Anthropic beefs up Claude's free tier as OpenAI prepares to stuff ads into ChatGPT's

Source: Engadget

Updates to Claude’s Free Tier

• Free users can now create and edit Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, and PDFs. These file‑creation abilities are powered by Sonnet 4.5.
• Connectors let free users link Claude to third‑party services, including Canva, Slack, Notion, Zapier, and PayPal.
• Skills enable users to teach Claude to complete specific tasks in repeatable ways by loading folders of instructions, scripts, and other resources.
• Additional improvements: longer conversations, interactive responses, and enhanced voice and image search.

Context with OpenAI

• The upgrades appear to be a direct response to OpenAI’s plan to introduce ads for free ChatGPT users.
• Anthropic emphasized that Claude will remain ad‑free, ending its announcement with the tagline “No ads in sight.”
• The company referenced OpenAI’s move in a Super Bowl ad that also mocked GPT‑4o.

Original source: Engadget article