Exploring Anthropic's Artifacts

Howdy????. The AI communication interface has remained the same since ChatGPT 3.5 hit the scene in 2022. Users type a message, the bot responds, and we rinse, wash, and repeat.

Anthropic released one of the biggest shifts a few weeks ago when it introduced its new AI model Sonnet, reportedly on par if not more powerful than OpenAI's ChatGPT 4o. The real excitement, however, is the introduction of Artifacts, which moves AI interfaces forward.

The idea is simple and brilliant. Imagine working on a Google Doc where you and a collaborator can edit simultaneously. Artifacts create a pane where you can see changes to a document you plan to use Claude to help you create or edit. Claude adds a version tracker that lets you quickly shift between modifications to the document as you make changes.

I often use ChatGPT and Claude to write or improve on code I've written, and I'm constantly driven crazy by the AI models' decisions to make huge changes between prompt requests. Picture an AI-generated work email that is almost there except for one paragraph, but attempt to explain to the AI what you want to change and rewrite the entire email. It's frustrating! This is a feature that aims to correct this issue.

As Lagniappe, Anthropic also introduced a cool prompt library that provides instructions on what a good prompt looks like and what output to expect. If you struggle with writing prompts, it's a great resource.

This small change has proven to be a UI breakthrough for AI, and is destined to be adopted by more assistants in the coming year. I’ll share my use so far, and some tips and tricks using Artifacts, but first, our sponsors and my thoughts on tech & things:

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To test Claude's Artifacts, I decided to use them to make some content updates to a new page I added to my website listing the services I offer. I took a draft I wrote in an editor and asked Claude if it could help me finish it.

Usually, Claude takes the text and uses it to generate a response, but that response comes back in the chat; with Artifacts, it creates a pane with my document.

As I used prompts to tweak services, like asking it to update "Advertising and Sponsorships" to say "Newsletter Sponsorships," Claude generated a new version, which I could flip between using the arrows in the bottom left corner.

It's so much nicer than scrolling through an endless page of versions, each generated based on minor feedback, but the features are not perfect. Claude rewrites the entire document regardless of how minor the change might be, using up tons of tokens, and editing is limited to the AI, so you can't hop in to make a few minor changes. That said, this is version 1, and it hints that the company understands that users want a better combined editing experience, and Artifacts is the start of that.

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-jason

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