Claude has a great feature to quickly import Google Docs into conversations.

· Bits and Bobs 2/18/25
  • Claude has a great feature to quickly import Google Docs into conversations.[yh]
    • My current workflow is to maintain a handful of different Google Docs as curated context for different types of tasks.
    • I can quickly tag in a given bit of context into any conversation I want.
    • Plus, they're just Google Docs.
      • I have all of the edit history.
      • I can easily modify them in my normal workflows.
      • I can even collaborate on them and share with others.
    • Claude also has a Projects feature where you can maintain libraries of contexts within Claude, but this Google Docs feature is much better.
    • I love this feature, but it seems like a strategic misstep for Anthropic.
    • Typically you want your product to be sticky, and one way to do that is to encourage users to store state that makes their experience better and better.
      • This then makes your offering continuously better than even equivalent offerings from others, since the user has built up state they don't want to bother recreating elsewhere.
    • It's like the Claude team was only thinking one-ply about this feature.
      • "We'll add value by doing a really nicely implemented, polished UX to integrate with Google Docs."
    • But UXes are very easy to copy.
    • If OpenAI spends even a day copying this implementation (and there's really nothing to it, other than a polished execution of an obvious and simple idea) then instantly all the switch cost[yi] goes away.

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