Anthropic / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET
ZDNET's key takeaways
Claude's mobile app now drafts emails, texts and events.
You get editable templates, but you must review before sending.
Integrations include Google Workplace and third-party connectors.
Anthropic has made it a little easier to communicate and organize plans with other people using Claude, the AI startup's proprietary chatbot.
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The company announced in an X post on Wednesday that all users of the Claude mobile app on iOS and Android can now prompt the chatbot to draft and send emails and text messages and create calendar events. The announcement is somewhat misleading, as Claude can only generate templates of messages and calendar events; users still need to take some key steps.
How to send emails and texts and create events with Claude
After prompting Claude with an overview of the message you'd like to send (including details about the intended recipient), users are presented with the option to open a particular app, like Gmail, Slack, or Messages -- and the chatbot will directly transfer the requested message; they just need to review and click Send.
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In other words, Claude generates a template of a message, which you can then either use or adjust with further prompting.
Similarly, you can now request that Claude create a calendar event. Just specify the details -- as with all chatbot interactions, the more you're able to provide, the better the quality of the output will be -- and Anthropic's system will provide a template for an event.
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If you're using an iPhone and click "Add to Calendar," it will automatically add the event to your device's Apple Calendar. If you use Gmail, you'll have to manually re-enter the details into a new event description.
Back in April, Anthropic announced that Claude could now be integrated with Google Workplace, allowing the chatbot to access information from users' Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Calendar accounts. These integrations, however, are only available for paid subscribers to the company's Pro, Max, Claude for Work, and Claude for Enterprise offerings.
Also: Anthropic mapped Claude's morality. Here's what the chatbot values (and doesn't)
Claude is becoming a multiuse agent
Anthropic has been investing heavily in transforming Claude into a multiuse agent that can interact with an ever-growing range of services across users' devices.
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Earlier this month, for example, the company unveiled a new directory of "connectors," or links to third-party apps, including Canva and Asana, that can be accessed through Claude on desktop or mobile.
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