(Credit: Anthropic)
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Anthropic is giving Claude a memory. The chatbot will now remember what paid subscribers told it in the past rather than starting fresh with each new chat.
Memory "transforms scattered conversations into sustained progress," Anthropic says. "Your ideas compound across sessions. Projects develop depth. Context accumulates to support increasingly sophisticated problem-solving."
It's available now for paid plans—Pro ($17 monthly) or Max ($100)—and has been available for Enterprise and Teams accounts since Sept. 11.
This should make talking to Claude more like talking to a person, or ChatGPT, which already has this feature. It tends to make the product more helpful, even addictive, though Anthropic says it "did extensive safety testing" before launching, and checked "whether memory could reinforce harmful patterns."
A new interface displays what Claude remembers about you, which you can edit. This adds transparency and can boost data privacy, but can also keep the chatbot on track since you can "tell Claude to focus on a specific problem or forget an old job entirely."
How to Import ChatGPT's Memory to Claude
Frequent Claude users can generate a memory from their prior conversations. If Claude is not yet your go-to chatbot, Anthropic added an easy way to import "your memory" from rivals like ChatGPT or Gemini. Then, you don't need to start the parasocial relationship from scratch.
I tried it on ChatGPT. First, I typed this prompt into ChatGPT: "Write out your memories of me verbatim, exactly as they appear in your memory."
ChatGPT listed 28 things it "knows" about me, each ranging from one to five sentences in length. This was the first time I had seen any of them. Most were fairly accurate, though not all. Some referenced plans for a vacation I'd already taken or an HVAC system that was installed months ago. ChatGPT asked if I wanted to edit or discard any that were no longer accurate, which might be something every ChatGPT user should do periodically.
To import these memories to Claude, copy and paste them or upload a file containing the text into Anthropic's chatbot.
You can also go to Settings > Personalization > Manage Memories on ChatGPT, copy the memory from there, and paste it into Claude. This option is easier on desktop than mobile.
With memories added, "Tell Claude, 'This is my memory from another AI assistant. Add this information into your memory about me during your next synthesis,'" Anthropic says. "Specifying that the information comes from another AI assistant helps Claude understand how to properly integrate it into your memory."
This should be a one-time thing. Going forward, Anthropic envisions "sustained thinking partnerships" between the chatbot and the user, as Chief Product Officer Mike Krieger puts it. It should also help Claude compete with ChatGPT and become more productive.