Anthropic Combined 3 Years of AI Lessons Into One Feature

Anthropic just released a new feature that might change the way we interact with AI entirely. After years of experience with generative AI—learning what works and what doesn't—they've combined the best approaches into something remarkably practical: Skills.

This isn't just another incremental update. It's a thoughtful synthesis of what we've learned about making AI actually useful in real workflows. In this post, we'll dig deeper into what Skills are and why they really matter for everyone working with Claude.

What Are Claude Skills?

Think of Skills as specialized instruction sets that extend Claude's capabilities beyond its core training. When you enable a Skill, you're essentially giving Claude access to expert knowledge in a specific domain or teaching it to follow your particular workflows.

Skills work seamlessly in the background. You don't need to explicitly invoke them or remember special commands. Claude automatically identifies when a Skill is relevant to your request and uses it to deliver better results. They transform Claude from a general-purpose assistant into a personalized tool that understands your unique needs.