Anthropic's New Feature Frenzy
When it comes to embracing new technologies, I've always been an early adopter. My friends in grad school still fondly remember my exuberance over the nascent web.
I'll take the Pepsi challenge against anyone. (Thank you, Carnegie Mellon.) At the same time, though, I have to admit: I'm struggling to keep up with Anthropic's crazy pace of innovation.
Recent Additions
As I write these words, here are just some of the features the company has dropped in the last few days:
- The ability to fully control your computer on whatever device you like—subject to a few caveats. (Cool, but yikes!)
- Claude Cowork Projects.
- Claude Code Channels.
- Memory 2.0.
- Auto mode to grant or restrict Claude Code's access on your computer. (It's a safer alternative to
--dangerously-skip-permissions.
To be fair, you may not have seen any or all of these new releases just yet for whatever reason. Possible culprits include:
- Anthropic's gradual rollout of the feature.
- The responsibilities of your day job.
- A plan restriction.
- A combination of all three.
Maybe it's something else.
Hell, by the time you read these words, Anthropic may have released two more insanely useful capabilities.
Unexpected UI Changes
Yesterday, I was testing Claude's cool new Dispatch feature when I noticed a lightbulb icon in Claude Cowork:
I went all Krusty the Klown:
Even Claude couldn't confidently give me an answer. Here's my prompt:
What's a Claude Cowork idea?
Reply:
The "Ideas" label on the lightbulb icon likely shows suggested tasks or prompts Claude thinks might be useful — similar to how Claude.ai sometimes surfaces conversation starters.
It's squarely aimed at non-developers who want automation without writing code or using Claude Code.
Likely shows. Even Anthropic's own chatbot can't keep up with its torrid pace of innovation.
Looking at the Data
Always curious, I looked at the Claude Code changelog and asked my AI bestie to visualize the number of recent changes in that tool alone. In other words, I omitted Claude Cowork, vanilla Claude, and change Anthropic classified as a fix. Here's the breakdown:
For some reason, Claude omitted changes after March 21.
Of course, some enhancements are more meaningful than others. Still, nary a weekday goes by without something new appearing in the Claude suite of tools.
Phil Simon
Simon Says
If I have learned anything over my three decades in enterprise technology, it's this: Tech typically moves much faster than people and organizations can handle. The rise of AI in the last few years reflects that reality in spades.
Is it possible to keep a workforce current on tools that change by the day?
No one is more critical of organizations failing to train their employees properly on new tools than I. (It's a key point in Project Management in the Hybrid Workplace.) At the same time, however, is it possible to keep a workforce current on tools that morph by the day?
In a word, no.
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