What Claude is
Claude is an AI assistant from Anthropic, an AI company. You talk to it in plain English at claude.ai in your web browser, or in its desktop and mobile apps.
It reads what you give it, such as documents, spreadsheets and photos, and writes back: drafts, summaries, plans and tables. You don't need to be technical. If you can write an email, you can use it.
What it's good at in a small business
The best jobs to hand it are the ones that repeat every week and follow a pattern you could explain to a new member of staff.
- Drafting emails and replies in your voice
- Turning rough notes into reports, minutes and proposals
- Writing quotes from your rate card
- Reading a spreadsheet export and telling you what stands out
- Writing down a process that only lives in your head
- Planning your week, a campaign or a hiring decision
It drafts. You check and send. Treat it like a capable new starter: quick, tireless, and in need of your judgement on anything that matters.
Why it gives generic answers out of the box
Every new chat starts from nothing. Claude doesn't know what you sell, who your customers are or how you sound, so it guesses, and the guesses sound like everyone else.
The fix is context: a short set of files that describe your business, kept in one folder that Claude reads before it answers.
Which plan you need
There's a free plan, plans for individuals, and plans for teams. These were the options on 19 October 2026. Claude's pricing page shows prices in US dollars.
- Free: $0, with usage limits. It doesn't include Claude Code.
- Pro: $20 a month, or $17 a month billed annually. The usual starting point for an owner.
- Max: from $100 a month, for heavy daily use.
- Team: from $20 a person a month billed annually, or $25 monthly. For several people, with chats kept out of model training by default.
- Enterprise: for larger organisations.
Our setup uses Claude Code, which isn't on the free plan, so you need a paid plan such as Pro.
Sources, checked 19 October 2026: Claude plans and pricing.
Switch off model training first
On the Free, Pro and Max plans, you choose whether your chats can be used to train Anthropic's models. Before you add anything about your business, open Settings, then Privacy (or go to claude.ai/settings/data-privacy-controls), and turn off the setting that lets your chats be used to improve Claude.
On Team and Enterprise, chats aren't used for model training by default.
How to set it up around your business
This is how we set up our own customers. It uses Claude Code, which sounds technical but isn't: you open a folder and ask Claude to read it.
- Download the Claude desktop app for Mac or Windows, install it and sign in.
- Switch off model training (see above).
- Download your business folder and unzip it somewhere easy to find, such as Documents.
- Open the Claude desktop app and go to Claude Code.
- Point Claude Code at your business folder.
- Say hello, then ask Claude to read CLAUDE.md.
CLAUDE.md is the file that briefs Claude on your business and tells it which advisor should answer: strategy, marketing, sales, operations, customer support, finance or learning. Each advisor has its own folder, with its own instructions and memory.
From then on, Claude keeps the files up to date as you work. When it learns something new, such as a new client, a price change or a decision, it saves it to the right file without being asked and tells you what it saved. Our download includes a setting that lets it save inside your business folder without asking each time, so if Claude asks whether you trust the folder, say yes.
Setting it up yourself? Make a folder with a CLAUDE.md that says who Claude works for, to read your files before answering, to save anything new and lasting to the right file as it goes, to write in UK English, and never to invent facts or figures. Add short files on what you do, who you work with, how you sound and where you're going. To stop Claude asking before every save, pick Accept edits in the mode selector next to the send button.
Can't install the app? You can upload the files to a Claude Project at claude.ai instead. It's a snapshot: Claude reads the files but can't update them, so you'd keep them current yourself.
The quicker way: let an interview write the files
Writing those files well takes most owners longer than they expect. It's hard to describe your own business from the inside.
Our free 15-minute voice interview does it for you. You talk about how your business runs, and we turn it into your knowledge pack: a folder with CLAUDE.md and your business files, ready to open in Claude Code, briefing a team of seven AI advisors from strategy to finance. It's £200 including VAT, paid once, and it includes a ChatGPT version too.
Claude or ChatGPT?
Both are good, and for most small business jobs the bigger difference is whether the tool knows your business. We compare them side by side, with plans, prices and privacy settings.
AI Business Knowledge Pack is independent and not affiliated with Anthropic or OpenAI. Plans, prices and settings change, so check the official pages before you buy.