Getting started with Claude — your first conversation

Never used Claude before? Here's the absolute beginner walkthrough — sign up, send your first message, and learn the three things that make Claude actually useful.

What Claude actually is

Claude is an AI assistant made by Anthropic. Think of it as a smart, patient colleague who has read most of the internet and is happy to help you with writing, thinking, planning, summarising, analysing, and a hundred other things — for free, in plain English (or Norwegian, or 30 other languages).

It's not a search engine. It doesn't browse the web by default. And it doesn't remember you between conversations unless you turn that on. Once you internalise those three things, the rest gets easier.

Step 1 — Sign up (2 minutes)

1. Go to claude.ai (using my referral link gives you a free credit gift to start with).
2. Sign in with Google, Apple or email. The free tier is enough to learn on.
3. You'll land in the chat interface. That's it. You're in.

Step 2 — Send your first message

Don't think of Claude as Google. Think of it as someone you'd ask for help. Try this exact prompt:

I'm a complete beginner with AI. Explain in 3 sentences what you're best at, and 3 sentences what you're bad at. Be honest.

Read the answer carefully. That gives you a usable map of what to throw at Claude — and what not to.

Step 3 — The three things that make Claude useful

1. Give it context

Don't say "write me an email." Say "write a polite email to a parent of a 14-year-old student who has been late 4 times this week. Tone: warm but firm. 5 sentences max." The more context you give, the better the answer.

2. Iterate, don't restart

If the answer isn't right, don't open a new chat. Say "shorter, drop the second paragraph, make the tone less formal." Claude updates the previous draft. This is where the magic happens — most beginners miss it.

3. Ask it to think

For anything important, add "think step by step before you answer" or "give me your reasoning first, then the answer." The output quality jumps noticeably.

What to try this week

• Paste a long email and ask for a one-paragraph summary.
• Describe a meeting and ask for an agenda.
• Give it a weird problem you're stuck on. Just talk.
• Ask it to teach you something you've always wanted to learn — a hobby, a topic, a skill.

What's next

The next lesson breaks down the three Claude products — Chat, Cowork, and Code — and which one to use for what. Most people pick wrong and waste hours. Don't be most people.