These Three Premium Claude AI Features Are Now Available for Free.
Claude by Anthropic is an AI bot that’s constantly rolling out new features , and the latest notable update includes three useful features previously only available to paid plan users.
If you ‘re choosing between different AI systems and comparing the features available in free plans, there’s now more reason to choose Claude over competitors like ChatGPT or Gemini for your next AI-powered task.
Three new features now available to free Claude users are file creation, external plugins called connectors, and sets of instructions called skills. Here’s how to use them.
Creating files in Claude
Claude’s file creation capabilities allow you to create Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, and PDFs directly during a conversation. You can either provide the bot with all the text, data, and other necessary information, let Claude create everything himself, or choose something in between.
For example, if you have a long list of names and grades, Claude can put them into a spreadsheet. If you have a series of images, Claude can combine them into a PDF and describe them. You can use it to analyze and visualize data, create presentations from reports, and compile summary documents.
To enable file creation for your account, click your profile icon (bottom left) in the web version of Claude, then go to Settings > Features and enable “Execute code and create files.” After that, all you need to do is tell Claude the type of file you want to create and its contents by providing the necessary information (or directing the AI to find it online ).
As is typical with such AI bots, the more detail and specificity you can provide, the better—the end result will likely be closer to what you were aiming for. I asked him to quickly calculate the results of a fictitious sports race and create a spreadsheet based on them. While not the most challenging task, Claude handled it well.
Claude connectors
Connectors allow you to connect Claude to a variety of other apps, websites, and services: so if you want it to create something for you in Canva, manage your Slack messages, or find great travel deals on Trivago, Claude can do it. The full list of current connectors will give you an idea of the possibilities.
To open the “Connectors” section from Claude’s dialog box, click the small “+” (plus) icon in the lower left corner, then select “Add Connectors.” You can search for connectors by name and filter them by type and category. After selecting the desired connector, you’ll need to enter your account information and grant Claude permission to access your account.
The connectors you select then become available in the same submenu in the query window: you can add new plugins and remove existing ones. You can either select an application or type its name in the query window, and Claude should understand what you mean. You can query results, perform searches, and interact with connected services.
Connectors can give Claude some useful additional capabilities. For example, with the Canvas connector, I was able to create a simple layout for a birthday brochure—something the AI couldn’t have done on its own. However, access to these tools was sporadic, perhaps indicating that they are currently used by many free users.
Claude Skills
Using the Skills feature, you can “teach Claude to perform certain tasks repetitively” (as the official support document puts it). In the parlance of old computer programs, these would be called macros: sets of predetermined instructions that Claude can repeat whenever you need to perform something in a specific way.
Templates are a good example, whether for emails or documents. Instead of simply asking Claude to write a letter for you, you can set key parameters for the work, including guidelines for tone, length, and style, as well as important information (such as your contact information) that should always be included.
In the web version of Claude, click your profile icon (bottom left), then select Settings > Capabilities and click Add under Skills to get started. You can create a skill through a dialog in Claude by writing instructions or uploading a skills file (which is convenient for adding additional elements, such as code snippets, as described here ).
I chose the Create with Claude method to create a simple way to write PDF report summaries, with specific recommendations for the number of paragraphs and headings, as well as the tone of the presentation. In the future, instead of entering these instructions every time I need to summarize something, I can simply call on this skill.