Anthropic is introducing a fresh addition to its AI chatbot Claude, enabling users to develop AI Agents like a personalized email assistant, a shopping bot for shoes, or other customized solutions.
This new feature, known as “tool use” (or the more technical term “function calling”), seamlessly integrates with any external API of your preference.
This tool, for example, has the capability to examine data in order to generate tailored product suggestions according to a customer’s buying patterns or supply prompt replies to customer queries, like monitoring the status of an order or delivering instant technical assistance. To set up such a helper, all that is required is access to an API and someone proficient in coding.
Moreover, these AI agents are capable of processing images, allowing for applications that analyze visual information. For instance, Anthropic illustrated how a virtual interior design consultant could utilize this tool to analyze room images and offer personalized decor recommendations.
This AI assistant will be accessible via Anthropic’s Messages API, Amazon Bedrock, and Google Vertex AI platforms.
The pricing depends on the amount of text Claude handles, which is calculated in “tokens.” Normally, 1,000 tokens correspond to around 750 words.
In the beta stage, the majority of users selected Anthropic’s quickest and most cost-effective choice, Haiku. This option is priced at roughly 25 cents per million input tokens and $1.25 per million output tokens.
Dianne Penn, a project leader at Anthropic, mentioned that the Claude tool has been undergoing beta testing since April with several thousand customers.
She is excited about emerging innovative startup solutions, such as Study Fetch, a highlighted customer that utilized the tool to develop a customized AI tutor named Spark.E.
AI assistants, also known as agents, appear to be the future direction of this technology. During Google I/O, the company introduced various methods to enable Google to handle shopping and searching tasks for users through AI.
Meanwhile, at OpenAI, the company is developing a voice assistant similar to the one in the movie “Her” that can provide real-time responses and perceive its surroundings (for instance, it recommended a wardrobe change before a crucial job interview in a demonstration).
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