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You don’t have to explain everything to Claude anymore – it’s finally in your apps

Published

3 days ago

July 15, 2025

Claude can now connect to apps like Notion, Canva, and Stripe
The AI can understand and assist with tasks using your actual work data
Claude’s secure access reduces the need to constantly explain context to the AI

Anthropic has upgraded Claude with a major new set of tools that let the AI assistant integrate directly with several popular software tools, including Notion, Canva, Stripe, Figma, Socket, and Prisma. The new Claude tool directory means you don’t need to explain what you want to Claude every time you want to employ those tools; Claude can now look at the same information as you to help.

Until now, most AI interactions have required copying and pasting every detail from your project management tool, explaining what’s important, clarifying what each task means, and double-checking that the AI understood it. Now you can just ask it to do the task, and Claude will pull the information directly from the relevant tool to handle things.

That might not seem groundbreaking at first glance, but that context gap is where things usually fall apart when asking AI chatbots to help you. For instance, if you’re working on a product launch in Notion and have a list of things to do, you’d normally have to retype or upload all the information to Claude. Now, once you connect Notion to Claude, the AI can read your project documents directly and start putting together timelines and presentation materials that fit the product because it sees what you see.

Or imagine a small business owner using Stripe to manage payments who wants a summary of which customers paid last week and which still owe you for your services. Claude can now pull that data directly from Stripe with your permission. And with Canva, a blank social media post template can now be filled in with a design and copy from Claude based on your brief. You describe what you need in plain language, and Claude will make something usable.

Claude connected

These integrations are powered by something called the Model Context Protocol, or MCP. That basically means Claude can understand and act on the tools you use without needing a whole tutorial. You just connect an app once, and Claude gets secure, limited access to the relevant information inside it. It doesn’t read your entire inbox or download your bank history, just what’s necessary to help you with the task at hand.

You can go to Claude’s tool directory and connect whatever apps you already use. If you’re on a paid Claude plan, you’ll get access to remote app connections like Stripe and Notion. Desktop integrations, like Figma and Socket, are available through the Claude desktop app.

Other AI tools are trying something similar. Google’s Gemini shows up in Docs and Gmail. Microsoft’s Copilot is baked into Word and Excel. But Anthropic’s take is more about linking what you already do with the AI, as opposed to baking the AI into those apps directly.

Of course, this doesn’t make Claude autonomous. It can’t pay your bills or fully run your job. And while Anthropic says it’s designed everything with privacy and security in mind, some are likely to be wary, even if you can choose what Claude can access. But for most regular users, this update represents something potentially very useful in staying on top of things. If, as Anthropic claims, it will save time and mean you don’t have to redo a lot of tedious paperwork, it will likely be a very popular feature.

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Brand Stories

Google AI Mode is getting a bigger AI brain from Gemini

Published

2 hours ago

July 18, 2025

Eric Hal Schwartz

Google has upgraded its AI Mode with the advanced Gemini 2.5 Pro
AI Mode has also added Deep Search, which can now run hundreds of background searches
A new calling tool built into Search lets Google call businesses on your behalf

Google is continuing to try to get you to use its AI Mode when searching online with new and enhanced AI tools. The conversational search tool has made Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro AI model available in AI Mode, along with the long-form report writing tool Deep Search.

Google AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers in the U.S. who are also part of the AI Mode experiment in Search Labs will now see an option to choose Gemini 2.5 Pro when asking tough questions as well.

This is the same heavyweight model behind Google’s most advanced AI tools. They’ll also have the option of using Deep Search, a feature available in the regular Gemini app that can simultaneously run hundreds of searches and will write up a report piecing together the information.

The more profound changes, though, are in how Search itself is evolving. Gemini 2.5 Pro doesn’t just fetch answers. It reasons. It explains math in full steps. It even writes code and tells you what that code is doing. And when paired with Deep Search, it can essentially conduct a research marathon on your behalf.

AI calling in

The new call feature for Search is something entirely different. It connects your search for information about a store to a phone call with AI. As Google shows in a demo, you can type “pet groomers near me” and ask for information not immediately accessible.

Instead, you can tap “Have Google call for you,” which will prompt Google to call local shops, ask about availability or rates, and then text or email the results directly to you. If that sounds like Google Duplex, that’s because Google’s Duplex technology powers it.

Of course, all this comes with a few asterisks such as having to pay for a subscription. Free users still get some limited AI call attempts, but the advanced AI Mode tools are reserved for paying customers.

Google’s advantage over other AI developers is the sheer size of its Search database, so even as OpenAI and others attempt to produce similar products, Google might have a lasting edge. Still, there’s a learning curve.

AI that does too much too fast can lead to problems. You don’t want your research assistant skipping over credible sources in favor of a Reddit thread with 38 upvotes. And you certainly don’t want your AI calling the wrong person to schedule a colonoscopy.

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Teachers gather to talk artificial intelligence in the classroom

Published

4 hours ago

July 18, 2025

Nicki Marker

HUNTSVILLE, Ala (WHNT) — Our world is constantly evolving, and lately, a lot of that evolution has been in the form of artificial intelligence.

“This is the future,” Kala Grice-Dobbins said. “It’s not going away, and we want our teachers to be informed, but also our students to be informed.”

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Grice-Dobbins is a cybersecurity teacher with the Madison County School System.

Thursday, more than 150 teachers from across North Alabama gathered to talk about AI and the use of it in the classroom.

“It’s clearly a novel technology– new for kids, new for teachers, and they’re trying to figure out how to use it,” Randy Sparkman said. “So we’re just trying to bring resources and bring these, Madison County districts, particularly, together to talk about strategies for using AI in the new school year.”

Sparkman is a part of Mayor Tommy Battle’s AI task force. They put on the AI in education event.

Gov. Ivey announces more than $3.7 Million in Rebuild Alabama Funding for local road projects across Alabama

Grace-Dobbins said she uses AI for help with things like lesson plans and recommendation letters.

“All of us use templates every day,” she said. “Why can’t it be our template to start with, and then we edit it because nothing’s perfect when it comes out.”

She said it’s easier than you think to spot students plagiarizing by using the tool.

“It’s not going to be your top of the line type paper,” she said. “It’s not going to be written in their kind of language. It’s not going to have their kind of thoughts involved, and so the more you know your students, you’re going to know this is not you.”

Angela Evans is also a teacher. She said she’s already been using AI in her classroom for years.

She has a message for those who may be skeptical. What she’d tell people.

“Don’t be scared because change is nature,” she said. “We are going to progress our humanity. Our intelligence is going to continue to progress.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHNT.com.

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Virginia Is First State to Use Agentic AI for Regulatory Streamlining

Published

5 hours ago

July 17, 2025

PYMNTS

Virginia is launching a pilot program that will use artificial intelligence (AI) agents to streamline regulations — the first such effort in the country — and reinforce the state’s standing as a friendly place to do business.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order to deploy AI agents to review and streamline Virginia’s regulations. The tool will scan all regulations and guidance to identify areas where there are conflicts with the statute, as well as redundancies and complex and unclear language.

“We have made tremendous strides towards streamlining regulations and the regulatory process in the Commonwealth,” Youngkin said in a press release. “Using emergent artificial intelligence tools, we will push this effort further in order to continue our mission of unleashing Virginia’s economy in a way that benefits all of its citizens.”

The new executive order adds to two other 2022 orders, which had mandated Virginia agencies to streamline regulations by at least 25%.

To date, state agencies have already streamlined regulations by 26.8% on average and cut 48% of words in guidance documents.

The new executive order is expected to help agencies struggling to hit the 25% regulatory reduction goal and give a further boost to those that have already met or exceeded requirements. The goal is to ensure the streamlining is done “to the greatest extent possible,” according to the governor’s office.

See more: Tech Giants Seek 10-Year Freeze on State AI Rules

All States Now Have AI Bills or Laws

The launch comes as Congress removed a 10-year ban on state AI regulations that was part of President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

At present, states are accelerating AI regulation. All 50 states plus D.C., Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands introduced AI legislation in 2025, with more than half enacting measures covering areas such as algorithmic fairness, transparency and consumer protections, according to a blog post by the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck.

In California, major bills include SB 420, which will establish an AI bill of rights, and SB 243, which aims to protect minors from chatbot manipulations. There’s also AB 1018, which seeks to ensure AI systems exhibit fairness in housing and hiring decisions, according to Brownstein.

In New York, SB 6453 has passed both chambers to be the first state law to restrict “frontier” or advanced AI models, according to Brownstein. In Connecticut, SB 2 is a comprehensive AI bill that awaits final votes.

Texas, Colorado, Utah and Montana have already enacted AI laws, and uncertainty about their enforceability has been lifted, the law firm said.

Meanwhile, California’s Judicial Council is considering requiring all 65 courts to adopt policies governing generative AI use unless they ban it outright, according to Reuters. If adopted, it would be the largest court system in the country with an AI policy.

Other states where court systems already have an AI policy include Illinois, Delaware and Arizona. States considering adopting an AI policy for their courts include New York, Georgia and Connecticut.

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