Anthropic updates Claude’s memory to enhance customization and protect sensitive topics
Artificial intelligence startup Anthropic PBC announced today it’s changing how Claude, its flagship AI product, uses memory by allowing users to see everything it remembers “topic by topic,” and edit or delete any of it.
Claude also does not store sensitive subjects by default. This includes topics mentioned by users, including health concerns, race, ethnicity, gender identity, religion or political beliefs. However, if a user flips a toggle, the AI will add them to its memory.
With the update, the AI’s memory will also persist across both chat and Cowork, the company’s desktop AI agent that can perform multi-step jobs. It is now the same one that Claude uses when a user is asking questions and brainstorming, or diving deep into agentic work, building documents, coding large-scale websites, or running tasks in the cloud. This means that it doesn’t matter if a user is sitting at their desktop, on mobile, on the web or connecting to the Cowork agent – it still “remembers” topics said in chat across months of context.
Anthropic framed this as not needing to re-explain the same thing over and over. Claude already knows simple subjects that you tell it often.
For example, if you use Cowork to build a report for your manager, it can recollect all of the context from your chats where you’ve discussed who your manager is, her name, her preferences for how she likes reports written and the voice you like to use (for example, not starting bullet points with a “loud” verb). Explain once in chat how the team defines metrics and how it likes them visualized and Cowork uses that when it builds slide decks from then on.
If the user doesn’t like it, they can quickly drop into the memory, find the topic within the interface and quickly change it to their liking. They can also just tell Claude – it adds memories as chat happens, instead of summarizing conversations after they end.
Mention a project deadline moved to September, and the next conversation already knows without needing to say “remember this.”
Minding sensitive topics
Although Claude is set to automatically ignore sensitive topics, once sensitive topics are allowed, users will see a notice that the AI model believes it has stored what might be considered a delicate subject.
Anything from before the toggle was flipped is not saved. Anthropic noted that certain subjects are never saved, even with sensitive subjects turned on. These include highly private information such as Social Security numbers, government ID numbers, criminal history, immigration status, and subjects that could violate the company’s Acceptable Use Policy – which includes numerous guidelines involving safety, emotional harm, privacy, and identity.
Images: Anthropic
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