What is Claude, and why are Australians using it so much?

Australia has a Claude habit. Forbes Australia reported that Anthropic's own data shows Australians are among the "most prolific users anywhere around the world", using it far more than the company expected.^[2]

So what is it?

The short answer

Claude is an AI assistant built by Anthropic. The company pitches it as "the AI assistant that gets work done", able to "hand off tasks, turn ideas into decks, spreadsheets and prototypes, and run scheduled tasks".^[1] You talk to it in plain English. It writes, summarises, analyses files and, increasingly, connects to the apps you already use.^[1]

How Australians use it

Students lead the way, but business operations account for "almost 6 per cent of Claude conversations in Australia", according to Forbes.^[2] Globally, Anthropic's research found work conversations "most often produce documents and reports (20%)".^[4]

Anthropic is following the demand. IT Brief reported filings to register "Anthropic Australia", with the Commonwealth Bank named as a local customer.^[3]

For business

Claude's Team plan is built "for teams of 2 to 150" and lists "no model training on your content by default", plus single sign-on and central billing.^[5] Its strengths are careful writing, long documents and step-by-step reasoning: proposals, policies, tenders, and making sense of a messy spreadsheet.

Like every assistant, it's only as good as the information it can see. Give it your business context and clean data, and it stops guessing.

Quick answers

What is Claude AI?

Claude is an AI assistant made by Anthropic that helps you write, summarise, analyse files and complete tasks, and can connect to business apps.