Anthropic adds memory to free Claude to match ChatGPT
Mar 9th 2026
Anthropic made Claude's memory feature available to free users and simplified importing chat histories as signups surge and the company navigates recent US government pushback.
- Anthropic enabled Claude to remember context across conversations for free users, a feature formerly reserved for paid subscribers.
- The company also added an easy copy and paste method to import chat histories from other AI bots.
- Free active Claude users rose more than 60% and daily signups have quadrupled since January, Anthropic said.
- Claude suffered an hourslong outage amid high demand that was resolved by midmorning New York time.
- The rollout comes as Anthropic faces US government scrutiny after President Trump ordered agencies to remove Claude and the Pentagon called the company a supply chain risk.
- OpenAI said it will deploy models inside the Defense Department's classified network, leading some users to call for a ChatGPT boycott.