// ZDNET — INTELLIGENZA ARTIFICIALE
Claude's Record-a-Skill cut my research from hours to 30 minutes - but the magic has limits
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Last month, Anthropic announced a new Claude Cowork feature: the ability to narrate a screen recording and turn it into a Claude skill. I tried it and, well, as they say, "All magic comes with a price."
Let's set the stage by defining what we're after here. A skill is a very detailed canned prompt that can be run like a program from within Claude (and many other AIs).
Also: This new Claude skill saves you from bad contracts - and costs less than a lawyer
The best example is this skill from the Claude Small Business plugin that comprehensively reads and evaluates contracts. It doesn't perform as well as the best contract lawyers out there, but it's actually quite a bit more helpful and comprehensive than some of the mediocre attorneys I've worked with over the years.
Another feature of Claude Cowork is the ability for Claude to control your computer, move between your apps, browse web pages, and make decisions during that process. Think of this as the ability to run very powerful batch scripts or shortcuts.
Over the years, I've attempted to use all sorts of tools to accomplish computer automation. I've had computer automations reading pixels on the screen, attempting very complex if/then branches, and working their way down a ton of very fragile steps. Most automations take days to set up and then don't survive past a single UI change on the part of whatever it is you're automating. It will be interesting to see if this also holds true with AI automations or if they'll be able to dynamically adapt to minor UI changes on their own.
Also: I use Anthropic's Claude AI tools for very different jobs: How to pick between models, Code, and Cowork
The new Record-a-Skill feature makes automations for you. In one evening, I created a very complex and almost wildly powerful skill. The process was far easier than doing complex scripting, but it was also fussy and fiddly and required a bunch of tweaks.
In this article, I'll walk you through one and show you the magic. And then, at the end, we'll discuss the price that comes with this magic. Read through to the end. That's the important part.