Sabrina Ortiz/ZDNET
Once upon a time, free access to AI chatbots was the standard. However, OpenAI launched its ChatGPT Plus plan, and it was met with high demand; other companies followed suit. Anthropic’s counterpart, Claude Pro, just got an upgrade, making it even more robust an offer.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET’s parent company, filed an April 2025 lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
The Claude Pro upgrade
On Tuesday, Anthropic announced that the Claude Pro plan was making two of its most powerful features — Research and Integrations — available to Claude Pro subscribers. These features were originally limited to the more expensive Max, Team, and Enterprise plans, and will now be included in the Pro $20 per month mid-tier subscription.
Also: Anthropic tripled its revenue in 5 months – and this is why
Research
The Research feature, Anthropic’s counterpart to Google and OpenAI’s Deep Research feature, allows Claude to agentically (or independently) search hundreds of sources to generate comprehensive reports with proper citations.
Anthropic’s competitive edge over competitors such as ChatGPT is that, beyond the web, the Research feature can also search connected apps and your Google Workspace, ensuring the report is well-tailored to your needs. Claude can search your assets, such as emails or documents, without you having to manually enter them.
Integrations
Last year, Anthropic introduced the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard for connecting AI assistants and agents to data systems seamlessly and securely. Since its launch, MCP has become increasingly adopted across the industry, with companies including Microsoft, OpenAI, and Google supporting it in recent months.
The Integrations feature allows developers to build MCP-compliant applications leveraging Claude’s assistance and enables users to connect those applications to Claude. For example, users can choose from Integrations with 10 popular services, including Confluence, Zapier, Cloudflare, Asana, and PayPal, or they can also build their own Integrations.
Also: Microsoft goes all in on Anthropic’s MCP standard for safer AI agent deployments
This is a valuable feature because AI assistance that uses your personal context creates increasingly helpful experiences. To take advantage of AI agents, especially, it is more necessary than ever to welcome AI into your data systems while prioritizing security and privacy.
How to access Claude Pro
This upgrade is especially notable given the momentum that Anthropic is having with the recent launch of the most advanced Claude 4 models. The company shares that since the launch of Claude 4, the paid subscriptions tripled, and these features may just add to that growth.
To become a Claude Pro subscriber, click this link and fill out the necessary fields, including your payment information. Other benefits include higher usage access, unlimited Projects, additional models, and more. The price may seem steep, but it’s the same as comparable plans from Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Perplexity.
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