Anthropic
The American AI company behind Claude, Claude Code, and the MCP standard. Former OpenAI staff founded it in 2021 with AI safety as the stated goal. It is a public benefit corporation based in San Francisco, a legal form that commits a company to a public mission alongside profit.
In plain English
Anthropic makes Claude, which people use the same way they use ChatGPT: to write, summarize, and think things through. It was started by people who left OpenAI. Safety is part of how it describes itself: it says it wants AI that is reliable, that people can see inside of, and that does what it’s steered to do.2
“Public benefit corporation” means its legal paperwork names a public mission it has to weigh alongside making money.
In the real world
- The Claude app, and Projects inside it.1
- Claude Code, its agent that works on your files.1
- MCP, a free, shared way to plug AI into other apps. Anthropic released it in 2024 and other companies now use it too.3
- Skills, saved instructions Claude can reuse for a recurring task.
Key facts
- Founded
- January 2021, by former OpenAI staff. Siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei lead it.
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, California
- Known for
- Claude, Claude Code, Projects, Skills, MCP
- Legal form
- Public benefit corporation
Common questions
Is Claude the same as Anthropic?
No. Anthropic is the company. Claude is both its app and the name of its family of models.
Why is Anthropic associated with AI safety?
It was founded with AI safety as the goal, and says it aims to build AI that is reliable, understandable from the inside, and controllable.
How does Anthropic relate to OpenAI?
Its founders came from OpenAI. The two are now the leading competitors in AI models.
References
- AnthropicWikipediaView source
- CompanyAnthropicView source
- Introducing the Model Context ProtocolAnthropic · 2024-11-25View source