[hgoel]

It doesn't really feel like an image model fits with the "theme" of Anthropic's products.

I see Claude as much more of a productivity tool than say, ChatGPT, so if they were to release an image model, I would expect it to be useful for presentations etc. But, then the images need to be more like infographics, which are difficult for an image model to get right. On the other hand, they are much easier for a strong coding model to implement, while also allowing users to make controlled edits.

[simonw]

It's interesting. Until quite recently image models felt like toys, and Anthropic opting out seemed like a good decision to me. I feel like the "trained on stolen data" thing feels a lot more real with image models, since they so clearly compete with the artists whose work was used - so it felt aligned with Anthropic's image as the "more ethical" of the labs.

But then Nano Banana happened, and ChatGPT Images 2.0, and now image models aren't a toy any more - you can get real, useful work done with them.

Which is a problem for Anthropic, because companies that are buying a suite of AI tools for their employees may well value the ability to create usable posters, leaflets, and most importantly presentation slides.

Anthropic don't have anything to offer there, where Google and OpenAI have two of the best models anywhere.

[hgoel]

I've seen plenty of people at my job that have tried to spice up their research seminar slides with some chatGPT-generated images, the only time they don't suck is when someone uses the images as a joke. There's always something blatantly off, such that the output is only usable for informal seminars. On the other hand, the approach of having an LLM produce a python script, or write out a PPTX directly with placeholders and "vector" flowcharts etc, is now a very common approach for us.