One of the best AI models just got even better. Claude 4 launched yesterday and I’ve been using it for everything from analyzing files and planning projects to copy editing and creating visual dashboards. Read on for my take on its most useful features, limitations, and five ways to use it.
🚀 What’s new with Claude 4?
💭 More nuanced reasoning. Claude’s “extended thinking” mode is now even brainier. It more thoroughly analyzes complex queries.
🧑💻 Stronger coding. Claude could already produce code quickly, but now it’s even more useful for non-coders like me. I prompt it to design dashboards to visualize datasets, from reader analytics to public financial data.
🗣️ Better language mastery. Claude 3.7 was already good at analyzing your writing style and providing helpful editing suggestions. Now it’s even better. You can feed it your prior writings and train it to give you personalized feedback.
Pricing: It’s free to use Claude 4 Sonnet on Web, iOS and Android. or $17/month billed annually ($200/year) for advanced features.
Privacy: Claude’s parent company, Anthropic, prides itself on prioritizing safety and data protection. By default, Anthropic won’t use your inputs or outputs to train its models. Read more about its data policies, protections, and its privacy policy.
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Benefits of Claude Pro
Use Claude Projects to get dedicated spaces where you can provide instructions and relevant documents for ongoing projects. This is my favorite Claude capability. It’s more efficient than repeatedly making isolated queries.
Use Web Search to gather new, relevant information with citations. You can search with Perplexity, but Claude combines search with richer analysis.
Use Extended Thinking to slow down responses and have Claude proceed step-by-step through a challenging inquiry.
Use Claude’s top model, Claude 4 Opus to get more nuanced replies.
Connect Claude to outside material, e.g. Google Docs, Calendar and Gmail to apply AI analysis to your own material, as shown in this video 👇
My bottom line: Because I rely on Claude’s advanced features, I willingly pay the $200 annual fee as an alternative to budgeting for a personal (human) assistant. If you’re exploring Claude for basic queries, the free plan may be sufficient.
Limitations and Caveats
Even as a paying user, I often run into usage limits.
The Projects I set up can only accept 30mb files. And after I add a bunch of files, Claude’s memory sometimes fills up and restricts further uploads.
Unlike ChatGPT 4o, it can’t generate images and lacks an advanced voice mode. Unlike Gemini, it can’t generate video.
Anthropic’s candid safety report notes that Claude, in rare cases, when pushed and prodded to behave badly, “sometimes takes extremely harmful actions,” that could even include trying to “blackmail people it believes are trying to shut it down.” (via Techcrunch) 😳
🧠 1. Teach Yourself
My Prompt
Help me develop a learning approach …. If you need more information from me, ask me 2 key questions. If I should upload any documents that would help you do a better job, let me know…
Topic: I'd like to learn about how the most modern continuous glucose monitors work…
Further guidance: You can use a variety of methods to help me learn. You can ask me questions and then respond constructively to my replies…
Result
See for yourself: The full chat includes my prompt and Claude’s responses. Claude created an interactive visual (it calls these “artifacts”) to address my questions in an engaging, helpful way. Then it designed a learning plan for me.
Bottom line
Claude 4 is a great resource for learning in unconventional ways. The AI assistant can guide you step-by-step through complex topics. Coach it to act as a patient, engaging instructor that adapts to your learning style. Experiment with the kinds of interactions, explanations, exercises, and guidance that helps you most.
Other examples
How can AI be useful for medical diagnosis? I asked Claude to explain some of the ways AI can be a useful ally for radiologists and other medical pros. In addition to a summary reply, it shared useful sources for me to explore.
What makes Claude 4 stand out? I asked Claude for a simple interactive visual to illustrate what’s distinct about its newest model.
📊 2. Create a dashboard
Prompt
Help me analyze and visualize these analytics so I can better understand how readers are interacting with my publication and what potential adjustments might be worth considering…
Result
Claude suggested a variety of visualizations to help me better understand and act on the analytics.
Engagement Heatmap Show open rates by subscription type and tenure
Revenue Flow Chart Visualize conversion paths from free → paid
Geographic Heat Map Show global distribution with revenue overlay
Retention Curve Plot subscriber activity over time by cohort
Churn Risk Dashboard Track at-risk subscribers by last engagement
Claude also gave me a detailed list of insights about my data, ranging from conversion sources that work well to observations about my readership’s geographic distribution.
Bottom line
I find interactive dashboards useful for turning complicated material into something I can see and explore. The dashboards are private by default. If you want, Claude can publish a dashboard and give you a link to share.
How to make your own dashboard: Upload a file, paste in info you want Claude to visualize, or toggle on Claude’s Web Search option to look for source material. Then tell Claude the kind of dashboard you want and your design preferences, like company color palette, annotations, or source attribution you’d like included.
Example: Visualization of U.S. newspaper circulation decline from 1940-2022
✍️ 3. Edit thoughtfully
Prompt
Act as an experienced editor. Please first slowly read and analyze the following text without rewriting it. Then provide a numbered list of concise, specific, constructive, observations to help me strengthen the piece by noting any of the following issues in my writing…. (list includes grammar, spelling, syntax, sentence structure, redundancy, cliches, passive voice, etc). Full prompt
Result
Claude serves as a consistently reliable AI copy editing assistant. Getting instant, specific, detailed, constructive, feedback on writing can help any writer improve. It helps catch errors and can point out opportunities for sharpening weak phrases or awkward sentences.
Bottom line
Rather than replacing your own voice with Claude’s, use it as a copy editing assistant that gives you a list of issues to consider. You retain agency in deciding whether and how to make specific changes.
Unique feature: Claude is the only major model that lets you toggle particular styles for any given query. You teach it a style by feeding it a piece of your own writing. You can later toggle on any style you’ve taught it (e.g. “team onboarding manual” style) to help you edit a new version of your onboarding guide. To do something similar with ChatGPT or Gemini, make your own Custom GPTs or Gemini Gems with similar capabilities.
🔎 4. Analyze a file
Prompt
Act as a patient teacher and experienced explainer. I need help understanding a new academic publication evaluating the performance and accuracy of AI Deep Research agents… (See full prompt and the reply)
Result
See the conversation thread with my extended prompt and Claude’s reply. See Gemini 2.5 Pro’s response for comparison. I actually preferred Gemini’s reply in this case. I may have stuffed too much into my request of Claude, including the glossary. In general, both Gemini 2.5 Pro and Claude 4 perform well at analyzing, summarizing and helping me learn from complex materials. ChatGPT 4.1 also works well for this. See its helpful, concise response to this analysis query.
Why use AI for file analysis? With the help of an AI assistant, I’m better able to make sense of jargon-filled, abstract academic papers. If my initial efforts to understand falter, Claude, Gemini or ChatGPT can assist me, just as I might ask a human expert for help.
☑️ 5. Plan a project
Prompt
Draft three potential structured plans that break down my upcoming new program development project into manageable phases. Given my outline of our overall timeline and rough project goals, suggest how we might map out the next 90 days, noting potential milestones, potential challenges to prepare for, and relevant mitigation strategies. Include decision points where we should evaluate progress before proceeding, and suggest relevant frameworks we can apply…
Result
Claude gives me helpful, thorough, plans I can build on. After setting the original project parameters, goals, timeline and context, I can iterate on the specifics of the plan and explore multiple possible approaches.
Tip: Start by generating multiple possible plans so you’re not limited to the first approach you see. Compare them to see what makes the most sense. Then ask for adjustments, iterate, and adapt the responses so you end up with a great plan.
Bottom line
Claude Projects allow you to upload relevant documents and provide detailed context for something you’re working on. You can return to that project anytime you have a query without having to start from scratch. You won’t have to re-explain the specific context.
I have projects set up for background research related to my volunteering work, subjects I’m studying, and repetitive technical tasks and dashboards. Here’s why I find Claude Projects so useful.
Additional resources
Introducing Claude 4 — Anthropic [blog post]
Claude 4 Is finally here — Skill Leap AI [video]
Why everyone’s freaking out about Claude 4 — The AI Advantage [video]
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Great article-very useful as always.
My question is whether we need to switch back and forth between so many tools? I have been using mostly Claude (often with the lex.page interface for writing). But when OpenAI added image generation and memory, I decided to experiment with it. This week I had two use cases where only o3 was able to deal with my questions.
Now there's all the Claude 4 announcements, and I feel like I need to go check that out. The Red Queen effect is killing me. Does Claude now have memory--or only within a project?
I don't code. I research questions, draft content. I'd love to know which of the Claude's you use at different stages in a writing project.
Thanks! Great analysis.