Anthropic has introduced two major updates to its Claude AI assistant—Integrations and Advanced Research—aimed at expanding the chatbot’s capabilities and competing with top AI players like OpenAI and Google. These new features are currently in beta for Claude Max, Team, and Enterprise users, and will soon roll out to Pro subscribers.
Integrations is designed to help Claude connect with third-party apps and tools, enabling more context-aware and task-oriented AI performance. Built on Anthropic’s MCP protocol, this system allows developers to build and host app servers that Claude can access to perform actions across various platforms. At launch, integrations are available from partners like Atlassian, Zapier, Intercom, Cloudflare, Square, and PayPal. These integrations let Claude manage tasks such as summarizing Confluence pages or automating workflows through Zapier.
Advanced Research, the second new feature, enhances Claude’s ability to perform in-depth, multi-source investigations. Users can toggle this feature to have Claude break down a complex query into smaller parts, research each in depth, and compile a report. This tool draws from a wide range of internal and external data, including web content, enterprise sources, and even local drives via the Claude desktop app on macOS and Windows. Reports take between five and 45 minutes to complete and include direct citations.
This update places Claude in closer competition with other AI agents like Google’s Gemini, Microsoft’s Copilot, and xAI’s Grok, all of which have released similar deep research capabilities. Anthropic’s move signals an intent to position Claude as not just a conversational AI but also a serious productivity and research assistant.
Anthropic, which hopes to grow its revenue to $34.5 billion by 2027, is significantly expanding Claude’s functionality. As of March 2025, the company’s annualized revenue was reported at around $1.4 billion. By integrating with business apps and enhancing its research depth, Claude is evolving into a more versatile tool for users seeking intelligent, action-oriented support across digital workflows.
