Your first hour with Claude, done right.

Claude has a reputation: the thoughtful one, the writer's one, the one that reads the whole document. Reputations are vague — this first hour makes it concrete, with your real work.

01 Where Claude lives

Start at claude.ai (web) or the desktop and mobile apps — same account, same conversations everywhere. If your team runs Slack, Claude Tag puts it inside your channels; if you write code or automate things, Claude Code is its own world. Day one: the app or website is plenty. Free tier is real — capped daily use of a current model, enough to learn on before deciding about a paid plan (the honest math: what Claude costs).

02 Three settings, five minutes

03 Five conversations that show you the tool

• The long read: attach the longest PDF you actually need to understand — a contract, a report, a manual — and ask for the summary plus "what should worry me?" Claude's large context window means it genuinely reads all of it. This is demo #1 for a reason.
• The hard email: "Help me write a reply that says no to this request without burning the relationship." Tone work is Claude's signature.
• The thinking partner: "I'm deciding between X and Y. Interview me — one question at a time — then lay out the tradeoffs you heard."
• The rewrite in your voice: paste something you wrote: "Match this voice and draft [new thing]."
• The honest critic: hand it your plan or draft: "Be a tough editor. What's weak, what's missing, what would a skeptic say?" Claude pushes back more willingly than most AIs — use that.