Anthropic has launched a new set of features for its Claude AI assistant aimed at extending its utility in professional environments and expanding its research capabilities. With a focus on integration and depth, these updates aim to bring Claude into closer competition with other advanced assistants like Google Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The new Integrations feature enables Claude to connect with third-party applications via Anthropic’s MCP protocol. This protocol allows Claude to access data and take actions across connected tools and services, making it more useful for tasks requiring context from work platforms. The launch lineup includes integrations with services like Atlassian, Zapier, Cloudflare, Intercom, Square, and PayPal. For instance, the Atlassian connection allows Claude to create and summarize Confluence pages, while Zapier support enables Claude to interact with thousands of apps through workflow automations.
This approach positions Claude as a central interface for productivity, enabling developers to host their own app servers that users can discover and link to the assistant. As Anthropic explains, connecting tools gives Claude “deep context about your work — understanding project histories, task statuses, and organizational knowledge — and can take actions across every surface” (source).
Anthropic is also rolling out Advanced Research, an upgraded research capability that builds on Claude’s reasoning model to deliver more thorough, multi-source reports. This feature works by decomposing user queries into sub-tasks, then drawing from a mix of internal and external sources, including connected apps and — on desktop — local MCP-linked drives. The output is a more nuanced, citation-rich report that can take from five to 45 minutes depending on complexity. This marks a shift from the earlier iteration of Claude’s research, which returned quicker results but with less depth due to the absence of a reasoning model.
These features are currently available in beta for Claude Max, Team, and Enterprise users, with expansion to Pro subscribers expected soon. Claude Max users also benefit from increased rate limits in Claude Code, the platform’s AI-assisted coding environment.
As Anthropic seeks to scale toward its ambitious revenue target of $34.5 billion by 2027, the company is banking on these integrations and research enhancements to make Claude more indispensable in enterprise settings. With richer context and reasoning abilities, Claude is being positioned not just as a chatbot, but as an operational collaborator.