Anthropic, the American startup company that produces the Claude family of generative artificial intelligence programs, on Wednesday said users can now make full-fledged applications using the "artifacts" function in Claude, and choose from a curated list of pre-built apps others have made.

Artifacts, which were introduced in June of last year, and made generally available in August, allow for objects you make at the prompt - a picture, a diagram - to be displayed in their own separate area alongside the prompt window. 

Also: Why Claude's Artifacts is the coolest feature I've seen in generative AI so far

The artifacts are held in memory past the current chat session, preserving the output as a free-standing object of sorts.

With Wednesday's announcement, the artifacts are displayed in their own separate dashboard screen, where you can keep what you've made, share them with others, and also browse a curated set of pre-built artifacts.

The original inspiration for artifacts was for simple coding, such as a website. But artifacts can now have more robust application qualities.

"Now anyone can create even more powerful apps through simple conversation - no coding required," the company said.

The company gave several examples in a press release. "Early users are creating apps that think for themselves: games with NPCs that remember choices and adapt storylines, smart tutors that adjust explanations based on understanding, and data analyzers that answer plain-English questions about uploaded spreadsheets."

Videos shared by Anthropic displayed sample creations: A drum-machine app that has individual controls for beats, a first-person-style game where players navigate a wooded landscape, a side-scrolling game of knocking out colored squares.

Anthropic clearly envisions a kind of App Store, emphasizing the ability to share artifacts in the dashboard space set aside for them. 

"Creators share what they make freely. Anyone with a Claude account can access these apps -- including free accounts. No API keys or hidden costs," the company said. 

Also:How does Claude work? Anthropic reveals its secrets

That sharing function aligns with the original intention expressed by Anthropic for artifacts to be a means of team collaboration. The company sells team-based usage plans for Claude; enhanced collaboration plays to the company's business focus.

The simple artifacts developed thus far, such as the games examples, echo prior periods in internet application development. The Java programming language was initially for coding the simplest actions such as animations inside of a Web browser, java applets, before the language was taken up for programs.

It remains to be seen whether artifacts' new capabilities will span multiple kinds of developers, from non-coders who want to realize an idea, to actual programmers who tend to work in integrated development environments such as Google Gemini Code Assist. 

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