Anthropic, the artificial intelligence startup backed by Amazon, is launching its generative AI assistant Claude in Europe on Tuesday. The assistant will be available to individuals and businesses through the web and via an iPhone app. A paid subscription-based version of Claude, called Claude Pro, will also be available for users who want access to all its models, including Claude 3 Opus, the most advanced offering. Additionally, Anthropic is introducing its business-focused Claude Team subscription-based plans, which cost 28 euros ($30) a month before value-added tax (VAT).
Dario Amodei, CEO and co-founder at Anthropic, emphasized that Claude has been designed with a strong commitment to accuracy, security, and privacy. As AI technology continues to advance rapidly, concerns about the impact on jobs and privacy have become prevalent. The European Union Parliament has passed the world’s first major set of regulatory ground rules to govern the new technology through the AI Act. This legislation aims to identify and apply rules based on the levels of risk AI poses, categorizing risks into low, medium, high, and unacceptable.
Anthropic has announced that its Claude assistant is highly fluent in several European languages, including French, German, Italian, and Spanish. While Claude.ai has been available for free in the U.K. on both web and mobile, this launch marks the first time the product is being introduced to users in the EU and non-EU countries such as Norway, Switzerland, and Iceland. The company has quickly gained recognition as one of the most promising generative AI companies in the market, with investors valuing it at $18.4 billion as of March. Amazon’s $2.75 billion investment in Anthropic in March brought its total investment in the firm to $4 billion.
Amazon’s investment in Anthropic has raised concerns among regulators who fear it could compromise the company’s independence. In the United Kingdom, regulators are examining whether Amazon’s investment and partnership with Anthropic, as well as similar arrangements made by Microsoft with generative AI firms, could be perceived as consolidations that diminish competition. Amazon has asserted that its relationship with Anthropic constitutes a limited corporate investment rather than a merger, while Microsoft denies that its agreements with AI startups OpenAI and Mistral and talent acquisition from Inflection amount to mergers.
