Anthropic Launches Claude for Education to Support Universities with AI

AI startup Anthropic has launched Claude for Education, a specialised version of its AI tool Claude designed to support higher education institutions. 

The tool offers secure access for teaching, learning, and administration, aiming to help shape the future role of AI in society. Key features include Learning Mode, which encourages critical thinking through Socratic questioning, and campus-wide access at institutions like Northeastern University, LSE, and Champlain College.

Claude will assist students in drafting essays, solving calculus problems, and receiving thesis feedback. Faculty can use it to create rubrics, generate academic materials, and provide tailored feedback. Administrative teams can automate tasks, analyse trends, and simplify complex policies.

Northeastern University is deploying Claude to 50,000 members across 13 campuses as part of its Northeastern 2025 academic plan. LSE is focusing on responsible AI use by offering Claude to its entire student body, while Champlain College is integrating it into all programmes to develop AI skills for the workforce.

Anthropic has partnered with Internet2 to provide secure AI access and with Instructure to integrate Claude into the Canvas learning platform. 

TechCrunch reported that Claude for Education could help Anthropic increase its revenue.

The company, which currently makes $115 million a month, aims to double that in 2025 while competing with OpenAI in the education sector. This launch follows Anthropic’s trend of matching OpenAI’s offerings.

OpenAI has partnered with 15 leading research institutions to advance AI in research and education, providing AI tools to benefit students, researchers, and educators worldwide. This follows the launch of ChatGPT Edu in May 2024.

In March, the company announced it had secured $3.5 billion in a Series E funding round, bringing its post-money valuation to $61.5 billion. 

The funds will be used to further AI research, increase compute capacity, and support international growth. The company outlined how to use the investment to improve the development of next-generation AI systems, expand its compute capacity, deepen its research in mechanistic interpretability and alignment, and speed up its global expansion.