What is Claude?
Updated · By Robert Breen
Claude is an AI assistant made by Anthropic. Like ChatGPT, you chat with it to draft, summarize, analyze and rewrite text, and it can read documents you upload. Businesses can also reach Claude's models through Anthropic's API to power their own tools.
Why it matters for a small business
Most small businesses end up with more than one AI assistant in the building: one person prefers ChatGPT, another likes how Claude writes, and some vendor's tool runs on one of them underneath. They work the same basic way, so the skills transfer: give context, state the facts, ask for a format, check the result.
The differences that matter day to day are practical: which assistant your company has approved, how each handles your data settings, and which one writes closer to your house style. Try the same real task in both before choosing, and record the choice in your AI policy so staff don't paste client data into whichever tool they happen to like.
In a real lesson: Reply Faster to Clients Chasing Their Refund: ChatGPT for Tax and Bookkeeping Firms
Stepthrough's chat lessons are built on ChatGPT, and there is no Claude lesson. The routine in the refund email lesson carries over to Claude unchanged, which makes it good practice for either. You're at Northgate Tax & Bookkeeping, a made-up local firm, answering Greg Alvarez, who wants a refund date while two tax forms are still missing.
You paste the thread, then a numbered list headed "Facts (only promise what is here)": what arrived on Sep 13, the missing 1099-INT and consolidated 1099, the 5-business-day turnaround once everything is in, that the IRS decides when a refund is issued, and that new bank account numbers go in the portal under Refund details, never by email. Then you ask for a draft, have the assistant check every promise against the facts, and catch the refund date nobody can promise.
Every step is plain text in a chat box, so the same three messages work in Claude with the same check at the end.
Try this lesson free or read the step-by-step guide.
Common confusions
Claude vs ChatGPT
Different companies (Anthropic and OpenAI), different models, the same kind of product. Both chat, read files and write drafts, and both improve sharply with the structure in Role, Context, Task, Format.
Claude the app vs Claude the model
The Claude app is the chat product. Claude models are also offered through Anthropic's API and other services, the same way OpenAI's models power both ChatGPT and n8n's OpenAI node.
Claude vs Claude Code
Claude Code is Anthropic's coding tool for developers. For writing and office work, the Claude app is the product you want. Its workspace feature is covered under Claude Projects.
Tips
- Keep your best prompts in a doc so you can run them in any assistant.
- Compare assistants on your own real task rather than general reviews.
- Check your account's data settings before pasting customer information.
Related terms
Where to learn more
Frequently asked questions
- Is Claude better than ChatGPT?
- Neither wins every task. Run the same real job in both, such as a customer reply with a facts list, and compare accuracy and tone.
- Can n8n use Claude instead of OpenAI?
- Yes. n8n offers an Anthropic chat model for its AI Agent, so you would add an Anthropic API key as the credential instead of an OpenAI one.