Anthropic is set to launch a new feature for its AI chatbot, Claude, that enables users to create customized email assistants, purchase bots for shoes, and other personalized solutions. Referred to as "tool use" or "function calling, " this feature seamlessly integrates with any external API of choice. Though I'm not particularly fond of the term "AI agents, " that's essentially the objective here. For instance, this tool can analyze data to generate personalized product recommendations based on a user's purchase history. It can also provide prompt responses to customer inquiries, such as order tracking or real-time technical support. Setting up an assistant only requires access to an API and someone with coding knowledge. Moreover, this tool can process images, allowing applications that analyze visual data. Anthropic presented an example of a virtual interior design consultant using this tool to process room images and offer personalized decor suggestions. The AI assistant will be accessible through Anthropic's Messages API, Amazon Bedrock, and Google Vertex AI.

The pricing structure is based on the volume of text processed by Claude, measured in "tokens. " Typically, 1, 000 tokens equate to approximately 750 words. During the beta phase, most users favored Anthropic's fastest and most cost-effective option, Haiku, priced at around 25 cents per million input tokens and $1. 25 per million output tokens. Dianne Penn, a project lead at Anthropic, stated that the Claude tool has been under beta testing with several thousand customers since April. She expects to see innovative startup solutions emerge; Study Fetch, for instance, utilized the tool to build a personalized AI tutor named Spark. E. It seems that AI assistants or agents (or any other name you prefer) are the direction this technology is heading. Google, at its I/O conference, unveiled numerous ways to leverage AI for shopping and searching on behalf of users. OpenAI, on the other hand, is developing a voice assistant similar to the one in the movie Her, capable of real-time responses and environmental awareness (in a demo, it suggested a change of clothes before an important job interview).