The AI you go to, or the AI that reads your messages.
Claude is Anthropic's general-purpose AI assistant. You ask it to think, write, code, or delegate multi-step knowledge work through Cowork. this+that is different. It's a comms-forward AI that reads every email, Slack thread, Teams chat, Google Chat, and Telegram DM you receive, extracts the tasks, and runs workflows. Both products are MCP-native. Many teams use both.
A general-purpose AI you open and ask, or a comms-forward AI that reads your messages
Software has been here before. In the early Office days, Access was a core component because people built their own line-of-business apps. Then specialized SaaS took over, one domain at a time: Salesforce won CRM, Asana won projects, Shopify won commerce. Even though some people use Excel as a database, Access did not lose to Excel. It lost to a constellation of purpose-built apps that each nailed one job better than a general tool could. AI is at the same point. We think of it as two waves: Wave 1 is the general-purpose chat you open and ask; Wave 2 is the fit-for-purpose AI that owns one job end-to-end, with UI tailored to it (more in our essay on AI's second wave).
Claude is a Wave 1 product. Extraordinary reasoning, Claude Code for engineering, Cowork, now generally available for delegating multi-step knowledge work, real Memory and Projects, generous pricing. It will keep doing what it does brilliantly. this+that is one of Wave 2's first products: fit-for-purpose for messages, tasks, and team workflow. The agent lives inside your inbox and chat channels, scans every message for what needs doing, surfaces tasks for the whole team, and runs workflows automatically. Both products are MCP-native, so they compose. Claude Desktop can reach this+that's DoBox through MCP. Most teams who use Claude heavily will also benefit from a Wave 2 product handling their inbox. They solve different jobs.
Feature by feature
How the two products compare across the things that matter most.
| Topic | Claude | this+that |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Agent-as-app. A general-purpose AI assistant for chat, coding, writing, analysis, and task delegation. | Comms-forward. An agent that reads your messages and acts on them without being asked. |
| Where work starts | With you. You prompt Claude in a chat, run Claude Code on a project, or hand off a multi-step task through Cowork. | With incoming messages. The agent reads what arrives without being asked and surfaces what needs doing. |
| Channels read | Connectors pull content from external apps when you ask (email, calendar, drive, code, chat, project tools) plus custom remote MCP. Routines (research preview) can run on a schedule, an API call, or a GitHub event with the laptop closed, but there is no native trigger that fires on an incoming message, and the flow is developer and GitHub centric. | Gmail, Outlook, Slack, Google Chat, and Telegram read continuously, with Teams ingested. WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger are coming soon. |
| Task layer | Projects organize conversations and files. Memory carries context across chats. No persistent assignable task layer for messages you receive. | DoBox. Every message scanned for tasks, surfaced as assignable items for the whole team. |
| Workflow automation | Cowork (now generally available) delegates multi-step knowledge work across a broad set of enterprise connectors (Gmail, Drive, Slack, Microsoft 365, DocuSign, and more). Claude Code handles agentic engineering work. You start each job; there is no message-triggered automation. | Plain-language workflow builder triggered by incoming messages. 32 action types with conditional logic, loops, and sub-agents. |
| Memory / knowledge | Personal Memory across chats (auto-summarized), organized by Project. Available on Free and paid tiers. Single-user. | The brain, a writable team and personal knowledge layer with versioning. Agents and people read and write to it; auto-updating from your message stream is coming. |
| Team capabilities | Team plan (5-seat minimum) with shared admin, SSO, central billing, and enterprise search. Memory and conversations are still individual. | Team task assignment, shared task view, and team-request grounding (your agent searches a teammate's brain to draft a suggested reply). |
| MCP support | Native. Claude.ai web (via OAuth), Claude Desktop, and Claude Code connect to any MCP server. | Native, bidirectional. Consumes any MCP server in workflows (HubSpot, GitHub, Linear, etc.), and exposes a public MCP server so Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or any MCP client can reach your tasks. |
| Integrations | Anthropic Connectors for major SaaS apps, plus any tool via remote MCP. | Open MCP standard. Any tool with an MCP server or API plugs in. |
| Surfaces | Web, macOS and Windows desktop, iOS, Android, Chrome extension, IDE plugins (VS Code, JetBrains), Slack, Microsoft 365, API, and Claude Code CLI. | Web app, browser extension (DoBox for Gmail), and a public MCP server reachable from any AI client. |
| Pricing | Free, Pro $17/mo billed annually or $20 monthly, Max $100/mo (5x usage) or $200/mo (20x), Team $20/seat/mo annual or $25 monthly Standard, $100/$125 Premium (5-seat minimum), Enterprise custom. | Free during beta. |
- Claude is one of the strongest general-purpose AI assistants available. The current lineup spans Fable 5, Opus 4.8, Sonnet 4.6, and Haiku 4.5, covering everything from fast, cheap calls to frontier reasoning. For writing, analysis, and code, these models are hard to beat.
- Claude Code is one of the most capable tools for agentic engineering work. It runs in your terminal, reads and writes files, executes commands, and shows real judgment about what to do next.
- Cowork is now generally available and reaches a broad set of enterprise connectors (Gmail, Drive, Slack, Microsoft 365, DocuSign, and more), so you can delegate multi-step knowledge work, not just desktop clicks. Combined with Memory and Projects, Claude is a serious personal agent for the work you ask it to do.
- The on-ramp is gentle. A real Free tier carries Memory across chats, and Pro runs $17/mo billed annually ($20 monthly).
- For teams, the Team plan layers on SSO, JIT provisioning, shared projects, workplace Connectors, and enterprise search. Standard runs $20/$25 a seat; Premium ($100/$125 a seat) folds in Claude Code and Cowork. Enterprise goes further with SCIM, SAML/OIDC SSO, audit logs, a Compliance API, custom data retention, IP allowlisting, and a HIPAA-ready posture backed by a signed BAA.
- A different category. The agent reads the messages you receive, not the prompts you send.
- Channels are read natively and continuously: Gmail, Outlook, Slack, Google Chat, and Telegram, with Teams ingested. What sets it off is a message landing in your inbox, not a clock or a code event.
- DoBox turns that stream into work. Every message is scanned for tasks, and the whole team can see, assign, and track them in one place.
- Workflows fire on the message itself, so the work starts before you do. 32 action types, conditional logic, loops, and sub-agents.
- The brain is a writable team knowledge layer (not single-user Memory) that agents read and update as a side effect of doing real work.
- MCP works both ways: this+that consumes any MCP server inside workflows, and exposes its own so Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or any MCP client can reach your tasks. The two products compose rather than compete.
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