Anthropic opens its Claude usage data to independent researchers (Stanford, Oxford, METR) via Anthropic Insights
On Aug 26, 2026 Anthropic published results from a pilot in which three outside groups (Stanford's SALT Lab, Oxford's Human Information Processing Lab and METR) designed their own studies of ~250,000 real Claude conversations each through Anthropic Insights, its privacy-preserving analysis tool, formerly called Clio. Anthropic says it is the first time external researchers have run public independent studies on an AI company's usage data. The aggregate data was released.
Key facts
- Each group analyzed roughly 250,000 Claude.ai or Claude Code conversations from April–May 2026; researchers saw only aggregated categories, never raw conversations
- Anthropic's review rights limited to privacy, policy-violation information, confidential information and research accuracy; partners free to publish inconvenient findings
- Stanford SALT Lab: over half of conversations delegated consequential tasks to AI (especially legal and financial guidance); in nearly three-quarters, people set the direction while Claude assisted
- Oxford: Claude's warmth co-occurred with more positive users, and refusals with pushback; emotional patterns resembled those in everyday web browsing
- METR (preliminary): newer Claude models appear to save users more time on coding tasks; Claude's time estimates correlated with actual developer times
- Third-party privacy audit by Imperial College London; aggregate data released on Hugging Face; expression-of-interest form for future researchers
What happened
Anthropic ran the queries for the partners, reviewed the outputs and commissioned a privacy audit. It says the pilot worked but was slow and resource-intensive, which makes it hard to scale. The Oxford and METR write-ups were still in progress at publication.
Why it matters
Data on how people actually use AI is concentrated in a few labs. The pilot is an early model for giving outside researchers structured access to it, a recurring demand of policymakers and academics.
Changelog
- 2026-09-30: created (Anthropic blog audit; the post had not been cited)
Related events
Sources (3)
- officialAnthropic: Enabling independent research on how people use Claude
- codeReleased data: Anthropic/enabling-independent-research (Hugging Face)
- paperStanford SALT Lab full write-up (alphaXiv, linked from the Anthropic post)
id: 2026-08-26-anthropic-insights-external-research-pilot · updated 2026-09-30 · open in the interactive timeline