I Tried Claude’s New App Integrations With Mixed Results.
Claude’s third-party plugins, known as connectors, previously covered productivity apps like Gmail and Slack. Now, the company is adding a whole host of everyday apps to its connector catalog, including Spotify, Uber, Tripadvisor, Audible, Instacart, Intuit TurboTax, and AllTrails.
According to Anthropic , other connectors will be added in the future to expand the functionality of the Claude chatbot interface. This is similar to the ChatGPT app store , which allows for the addition of apps like Photoshop and Apple Music. But do these plugins truly deliver the promised convenience? And is the user experience truly better than simply using the apps themselves?
Finding and adding connectors in Claude
The connector catalog isn’t new, but it now includes many more options for different lifestyles: visitthe connectors page to see available options, or click the + (plus) button in the tooltip in the Claude web interface and select Connectors > Add Connector from the drop-down menu.
Each connector description includes an explanation of its purpose and how it works. After adding a new connector, you’ll return to the main Claude interface. To use a connector, simply enter its name in the command line—there’s no need to select it or even mention it with the @ symbol, as Claude will automatically understand what you’re referring to.
When you first launch a new connector, you’ll be asked to grant the AI permission to connect to the app using your credentials. This works the same way as with most other plugins: you’ll receive a list of permissions Claude will have within the app you’re connecting to, and then you can either approve or deny the connection.
To manage connectors and the permissions Claude has within them, click the + (plus) button in the window that appears, then select “Connectors” > “Manage Connectors.” For example, with Spotify, there are separate permissions for accessing information about what you’re currently playing, searching the Spotify library, and creating playlists—you can enable or disable each of these permissions separately.
I first tried Spotify, as it matches a similar service on ChatGPT. I asked what the most popular Radiohead song on Spotify was, but the system gave me the wrong answer. Then I asked for a playlist of “hidden gems” and “lesser-known tracks” for REM, which returned obscure tracks like “Shiny Happy People” and “Man on the Moon” (two of the band’s biggest hits).
It’s not the best start, but the other playlist options—for relaxing jazz, instrumental post-rock, and one-hit wonders from the 90s—worked better. I can imagine experimenting with some of these options when I’m less familiar with the artists I’m interested in and don’t obsess over the details.
However, playlists can’t be played within Claude—to hear anything longer than a preview, you need to switch to Spotify. And given that there are already plenty of ways to access AI-generated playlists (including within Spotify itself ), I’m not sure this Claude plugin really adds anything, even if AI can be trusted to select music (which remains debatable).
With Claude you can find Uber, hotels and walking directions.
I experimented with several other new tools in Claude. For Uber, you can check the current fare, which includes the estimated arrival time, the fare, and available options. This is useful, up to a point, but not much more convenient than simply checking the app—and Claude always transfers searches and bookings directly to the Uber app.
The Wyndham Hotels and Resorts connector showed promise: it not only returned search results for hotels in the desired area but also allowed users to compare prices, user reviews, and features—such as a pool, gym, free parking, and anything else they might need. It’s precisely these types of information-searching and information-synthesis tasks that artificial intelligence like Claude can truly excel at.
As far as I could tell by comparing information online, Claude made no mistakes in assessing the differences between the hotels I selected, but I’m still not sure I’m ready to completely entrust my travel planning to artificial intelligence.
AllTrails is another connector I explored when searching for various weekend hiking options in my area. I was able to easily search for routes by time, user rating, and difficulty, and Claude helped me narrow down the options and understand the features of each. As with other connectors, I received several well-formatted previews embedded within Claude itself.
However, this isn’t much different from using the standard AllTrails app from the start. Claude’s AI adds a dialog-based interface element, making searching and comparing a bit easier, but essentially it’s just a merging of existing data.
It’s one thing for Claude to scan your Gmail for meeting times and present the results in Slack (and this can already be done with enterprise-focused connectors), but it’s quite another to give you limited access to Spotify’s playlist-making tools. At the moment, these lifestyle extensions feel somewhat underdeveloped.
I had a similar experience with the Tripadvisor plugin when I tried to find reviews of a local attraction in Claude. The AI displayed a widget with information about the wrong location, informed me that it couldn’t find an exact match in the Tripadvisor database, and advised me to check the information directly in the Tripadvisor app, which I will do from now on.