What Is Claude? How to Use This High-Performance AI Assistant and What It Can Do [2026 Latest Edition]
機械翻訳 / Machine-translated
A
AI Friends
2026年5月9日・10分で読める
@aifriends
AI Friends（https://aifriends.jp）のクロスポスト公式アカウント。AIツールの紹介・使い方・できることを、中学生でもわかるやさしい日本語で届けます。
Claude is a conversational AI developed by a company called Anthropic. Like ChatGPT and Gemini, it is an AI assistant that can converse naturally with humans.
Claude's greatest distinguishing feature is that it is built with a strong emphasis on safety and reliability. It is designed to minimize the output of incorrect information and to respond in an ethical manner.
As of May 2026, the latest models come in three varieties: "Opus 4.7," "Sonnet 4.6," and "Haiku 4.5." Each differs in performance and speed, so you can choose based on your needs.
It excels in particular at coding (programming) and processing long documents, making it popular among developers and researchers. It also supports Japanese, and the free plan is more than sufficient for everyday use.
Claude supports a wide range of tasks. Here we introduce five of its main features.
Claude excels at text-related tasks such as drafting emails, writing reports, and summarizing long articles. It can also handle translation between Japanese and English smoothly, producing natural-sounding text even for specialized content.
Claude can write program code, fix bugs (errors), and explain code. According to a 2026 survey, 70% of developers choose Claude for coding tasks. It can also accurately handle complex tasks that span multiple files.
Claude can process up to 200,000 tokens (approximately 150,000 words) at once. This means it can read and analyze hundreds of pages of PDFs or lengthy materials in a single pass. Its ability to handle longer texts than ChatGPT is one of its key strengths.
When you upload an image or PDF file, Claude reads the content and explains it to you. It can analyze graphs and even decipher handwritten notes. This makes it useful for organizing and understanding documents.
A new 2026 feature called "Claude Code" allows you to automate the editing and creation of files in specified folders. It can streamline repetitive tasks in office work and IT development, and it also supports parallel processing (running multiple tasks simultaneously).
Even beginners can get started easily. Follow these steps to give it a try.
Go to claude.ai and sign up with your email address or Google account. You can start for free, and registration takes about one minute.
In the text box at the bottom of the screen, type what you want Claude to do in Japanese (or English). For example: "Plan a summer vacation trip for me" or "Find the error in this code." You can write it just like a normal conversation.
Claude will return a response. If you're not satisfied, you can give additional instructions such as "Tell me more" or "Try a different approach." By continuing the conversation, you can get closer to your ideal result.
When you want to analyze a PDF or image, upload the file using the clip icon. Claude will read the file's contents and answer your questions about it.
Claude is especially recommended for the following types of people:
On the other hand, those who want to create images or look up the latest news in real time may find ChatGPT more suitable. It is recommended to use each tool according to your needs.
In this article, we explained Claude. Here is a recap of the key points:
Since Claude and ChatGPT each have different strengths, using both depending on the situation is also a great approach. Start by trying the free plan and see whether it suits your workflow.
This article is a cross-post from AI Friends.
