Recently, Anthropic announced the launch of a new feature for its Claude AI chatbot called "skills," aimed at enhancing the practicality of AI agents in work scenarios. For years, the concept of AI agents has evolved from theory to experimentation, and now, more AI companies are investing more resources to make their agent tools truly useful for consumers and professionals.
The "skills" feature consists of a series of "folders" containing instructions, scripts, and resources that Claude can load when needed, thereby improving its ability to perform specific tasks, such as processing Excel documents or following corporate brand guidelines. Users can also create custom skills for Claude based on their work needs, and use these skills on Claude.ai, Claude Code, Anthropic's API, and the Claude Agent SDK. Companies such as Box, Rakuten, and Canva have already started using this tool.
This feature is designed to enhance Claude's AI agent capabilities in specific work scenarios, so users don't have to spend time every time writing perfect prompts or referring to previous context. This feature is currently available to Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise users.
Brad Abrams, product lead at Anthropic, said that the core of the "skills" feature is to provide organizations with a way to teach Claude how to perform tasks better within their specific environments. He emphasized that it is not about meeting arbitrary benchmarks, but rather about being able to complete the required tasks within their own companies.
Notably, this new feature from Anthropic was released at the same time as OpenAI announced similar functionality earlier this month during its annual DevDay event. OpenAI introduced AgentKit, aiming to help businesses and developers move agents from prototypes to production. One example OpenAI demonstrated was Albertsons using custom agents and data to develop a plan to boost sales. Companies such as Box, Canva, Evernote, and Ramp have also participated in testing this tool.
Key Points:
🌟 Anthropic launched the "skills" feature for Claude, aiming to improve the practicality of AI in work.
🛠️ Users can create custom skills to help Claude better adapt to specific work scenarios.
🚀 This move coincides with the release of new features like OpenAI's AgentKit, showing the AI industry continues to move toward practicality.
