What’s Anthropic AI? Here’s Everything To Know [2024]

You might have heard of Amazon’s $4 billion investment into Anthropic AI in March 2024, the viral story of the company’s 25-year-old employee claiming she may only have 3 years left to work because AI will replace her, or the latest release of Claude 3.5 which outperforms competitors like GPT-4o. 

This article will cover everything you need to know about OpenAI’s largest rival, Anthropic AI, and explore how its technology will impact your life and work. 

What is Anthropic?

Anthropic AI is an American artificial intelligence (AI) startup founded in 2021 by Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, Jack Clark, Sam McCandlish, and Tom Brown. These founders left OpenAI due to differing views on the direction of AI development, particularly concerning OpenAI’s $1 billion deal with Microsoft and the need for “alignment or safety”.

Anthropic was established as a public-benefit corporation, meaning it prioritizes both shareholder value and broader public interest. Its mission is to ensure the development of AI systems that are safe, reliable, and beneficial to humanity.

Anthropic’s Funding and Notable Investors

Anthropic has raised a substantial $7.3 billion to date through several funding rounds—all within a single year. The most notable investments include $124.62 million in Series A, $981.5 million in Series B, $446.34 million in Series C, $2 billion in Series D-1, and $3.54 billion in Series D-2 and D-3. Major investors include Amazon and Google, with Amazon alone committing up to $4 billion. 

What Does Anthropic AI Do?

Anthropic AI offers advanced AI products, primarily focused on large language models under the “Claude” brand:

Anthropic also announced that two more models in the 3.5 family are planned for release later in 2024: Claude 3.5 Haiku and Claude 3.5 Opus. 

Anthropic AI’s Claude Pricing

Anthropic AI’s Claude is free of charge with limited usage (30 messages) but requires an email address and a phone number to sign up. If you want to access Anthropic’s faster and more intelligent models, you can upgrade to Claude Pro for $20/month. 

What Are the Main Differences Between Claude 3 Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus?

The Claude 3 AI models by Anthropic come in three versions: Opus, Sonnet, and Haiku, each designed for different needs. In summary, Opus is the most powerful, excelling in complex tasks like advanced math and coding, but it requires more computational power. Sonnet strikes a balance between performance and efficiency, making it great for general use without being too resource-heavy. Haiku is the smallest and most efficient, ideal for simpler tasks where speed and resource savings are key.

• Claude 3 Opus: Performs exceptionally well in Undergraduate Level Knowledge (86.8%), Grade School Math (95.0%), Multilingual Math (90.7%), and Code (84.9%). Best for: Complex tasks requiring high reasoning, knowledge, and problem-solving skills. Suitable for applications needing advanced AI performance.
• Claude 3 Sonnet: Performs well across most benchmarks, especially in Undergraduate Level Knowledge (79.0%), Grade School Math (92.3%), and Multilingual Math (83.5%). Best for: Applications needing a balance between performance and computational efficiency. Suitable for medium-complexity tasks where cost and speed are also considerations.
• Claude 3 Haiku: The smallest and least computationally intensive model but still performs decently in Undergraduate Level Knowledge (75.2%), Grade School Math (88.9%), and Multilingual Math (75.1%). Best for: Scenarios where resource efficiency is crucial, and the tasks are less complex. Ideal for applications needing faster responses with limited computational power.

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Claude 3 vs. GPT-4 vs. Gemini

Overall, Anthropic’s Claude 3 models, particularly Opus, outperform OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Google’s Gemini models across various tasks. So, which model should you choose?

• Coding: Claude 3 demonstrated superior performance in coding tasks, scoring 84.9% on benchmarks like HumanEval, outperforming GPT-4 (67%) and Gemini 1.0 Pro (67.7%). 
• Maths: Claude 3 Sonnet excelled at complex quantitative analysis tasks, while GPT-4 and Gemini sometimes struggled. 
• Vision Capabilities: All three models showed impressive performance in object identification from images. However, Gemini refused to identify famous personas in images, likely due to ethical policies. 
• General Knowledge: GPT-4 provided more in-depth, scientifically-grounded reasoning compared to Gemini and Claude 3. 
• Multimodal Capabilities: GPT-4 and Gemini 1.5 Pro have strong multimodal capabilities, processing images, audio, and video inputs.
• Pricing: GPT-4 Turbo is more affordable ($10/million input tokens, $30/million output tokens) compared to Claude 3 Opus ($15/million input tokens, $75/million output tokens). 

Therefore, for a solid all-around performer, GPT-4 handles a wide range of tasks well. Gemini models are excellent for specific tasks, like math, especially if you benefit from integration with Google’s tools.

Anthropic’s Constitutional AI (CAI)

The Constitutional AI (CAI) framework is a training technique developed by Anthropic AI to align AI systems with human values into large language models (LLMs) like Claude. 

The core idea behind CAI is to create an explicit "constitution" or set of instructions that encode high-level objectives, ethics, and norms that the AI model should follow: 

1. During the supervised learning phase, the model is trained to critique and revise its own outputs based on the principles in the constitution and example demonstrations.
2. During the reinforcement learning phase, instead of using human feedback signals, the model uses AI-generated feedback based on the constitution to reinforce outputs that better align with the defined principles.

How To Build an An AI Agent Using Anthropic 

In May 2024, Anthropic introduced a feature that enables users to create AI agents using the Claude model. These “AI agents” can connect to any external API, allowing users to build custom solutions like an email assistant or an online shopping bot. The Tool Use feature is available for all Claude 3 models through the Anthropic Messages API, Amazon Bedrock, and Google Vertex AI. However, this tool is not free and you may find the costs in the price table we summarized above. 

If you are looking for the best alternative to Anthropic’s AI agent-building tool, choose Voiceflow! It’s a free platform trusted by over 250,000 teams, from Home Depot to LVMH. Join us today to prototype, build, and launch a no-code AI assistant in 10 minutes!

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is Anthropic AI Free?

Anthropic AI’s assistant, Claude.ai, is free with limited usage. For access to more advanced models, a subscription is available for $20 per month. The pricing for Anthropic’s models varies, ranging from $0.25 to $75 per million tokens.

Who is the CEO of Anthropic AI? 

The CEO of Anthropic AI is Dario Amodei. He co-founded the company and leads its efforts in AI research and development. His main goal for founding Anthropic is to develop safe and reliable AI systems that are aligned with human values. 

Can I Buy Anthropic Stock? 

No, you cannot buy Anthropic stock. Anthropic is a private company and its shares are not available to the public.

Is Anthropic a Publicly Listed Company?

No, Anthropic is not a publicly listed company. It remains privately held and funded by investors.

How Much of Anthropic Does Amazon Own?

Amazon has invested a total of $4 billion in Anthropic, including $1.25 billion in September 2022 and $2.75 billion in March 2024. Despite this, Amazon owns a minority stake in Anthropic. The deal was struck at Anthropic's last reported valuation of $18.4 billion. 

Did FTX Invest in Anthropic?

Yes, FTX (the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange) and Alameda paid $500 million for the 8% stake in Anthropic in 2021. In February 2024, a US judge ruled that bankrupt FTX may sell its shares in Anthropic.