I tested the top 5 Claude AI apps to see what you can really build

You've probably seen the hype around building apps with AI. One developer on X calls it a toy, while some influencer promises you can build the next Uber with one prompt. If you're like me and don't speak fluent code, it's tough to know what's actually true.

So, I decided to find out for myself. I blocked off a week, logged into my Claude Pro account, and just started building. My only goal was to see what a non-coder could realistically create without touching a single line of JavaScript.

This post is what I found. I'll walk you through the five most practical apps you can build with Claude right now, even if your coding skills are limited to copy-paste.

What exactly are Claude AI apps?

First, let's get on the same page. When people say "Claude AI apps," they don't mean there's an app store full of ready-made tools. Think of it more like having a junior developer sitting next to you, ready to build whatever you can dream up.

The secret sauce is a feature from Anthropic called "Artifacts." It's a special window in the Claude UI right beside your chat. As you describe what you want, Claude writes the code (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) and a live, working version of your app appears in the Artifacts window. This infographic shows how the process works.

You can click buttons, type in fields, and see it all work immediately. If you don't like something, you just tell Claude. "Change that button to blue," or "I need a field for an email address," and the app updates on the spot. You can go from an idea to a functional prototype without leaving the chat window. It's easy to see why tech writers are getting excited about this for people who don't code.

How I chose the best examples of Claude AI apps

To keep this experiment from getting out of hand, I set a few ground rules. I wasn't aiming to create the next billion-dollar startup. I just wanted to find things that were actually useful and that anyone could build.

My main criteria was accessibility. The app had to be buildable with plain English. The moment I needed to debug code or hit up Stack Overflow, it was disqualified. The whole point was to use conversation, not code.

It also had to be practical. I was looking for tools that solved a real, even if small, problem, not just flashy demos. A Redditor made a great point that many popular websites are just simple calculators, which is the kind of thing that's perfect for building with AI.

Finally, I looked at speed. Could I get a working version up in minutes, not days? I was focused on quick wins and rapid prototyping.

A quick comparison of the top Claude AI apps

This table gives you a quick snapshot of the different app types I explored. It should help you figure out which one might be the best fit for what you’re trying to do.

The 5 best Claude AI apps to try

Alright, let's get into the details. Here are the five app categories that I found to be the most successful and practical for anyone to try.

1. Interactive calculators and tools: Your first Claude AI apps

This was by far the easiest and most satisfying place to start. Think about any simple online tool you've ever used-the kind that takes a couple of inputs and spits out an answer. That's the perfect first project.

All you have to do is describe the tool you want. For instance, you could say, "Create a calculator with fields for 'annual salary' and 'tax rate,' and show the 'after-tax income'." Claude builds the interface right there in the Artifacts window, complete with input fields and a "calculate" button. You can even get creative and ask Claude to copy a design by uploading a tool's screenshot.

You can literally screenshot it and upload it to ChatGPT and it can do a half decent job of copying the interface for you.

Reddit

A great real-world example came from a Redditor who was tired of ad-cluttered websites for simple calculations. They asked an LLM to build a clean marathon pace calculator and got a working version in about a minute. That really shows you what's possible.

When I saw all the awful ad-ridden online calculators, I just asked o3-mini to create one for me. Done in a minute, no ads.

Reddit

The upside is that these tools are super easy to make and they're immediately useful. They solve one problem well, which makes them a great entry point into building with AI. The downside? They are simple. They can't handle complex, multi-step logic. And if you need to save user data or connect to something like Mailchimp, you'll have to get your hands dirty with actual code or find another tool.

2. Building simple websites and landing pages with Claude AI apps

Next, I tried my hand at building actual web pages. I knew I wasn't going to create a full e-commerce store, but I wanted to see if I could whip up a decent landing page or a simple portfolio.

The process is pretty conversational. You just describe the layout you want, section by section. For example: "Make a single-page website with a header for my name, an 'about me' section with a picture, and a contact form at the bottom." Claude generates the HTML and CSS, and you can fine-tune things like colors and fonts with more prompts.

The main advantage here is speed. You can mock up a design in minutes, not days. Anthropic has examples of people creating a mood canvas or dashboard just by chatting with Claude. It's a great way to test an idea before you bring in a developer.

But there's a catch. Claude gives you the code, but it doesn't host the site. You'll have to take that code and deploy it yourself using a service like Netlify or GitHub Pages. These sites are also best for static content, so don't expect to build a web app with user accounts and a database.

3. Creating data visualization dashboards with Claude AI apps

This one feels like a superpower for anyone who hates spreadsheets. The idea of turning a boring data file into an interactive chart just by asking is pretty amazing.

You can upload a file, like a CSV of your sales data, right into the chat. Then you just tell Claude how to visualize it. A prompt like, "Create a bar chart from this CSV showing sales by region," is all it takes. Claude knows its way around different chart types. I even saw one blogger build a whole dashboard to analyze Readwise highlights, which is a brilliant use case.

This makes data analysis much more approachable. You don't need to be a pivot table expert to spot trends in your data. It's a quick, intuitive way to get insights from numbers. You do need to be realistic, though. This works well for small to medium datasets. With huge files or really complex requests, Claude can sometimes get confused or even make up incorrect data. For a live, mission-critical business dashboard, you'll still want a dedicated business intelligence (BI) tool.

4. Mini-games: Fun Claude AI apps you can build

I also wanted to see if I could build something just for fun. This category is less about business utility and more about just playing around and seeing what's possible.

You can define the game's rules through conversation. I started with something simple: "Create a multiple-choice quiz about space exploration with five questions." Claude came up with the questions, answers, and the logic to check if I was right or wrong, all running inside the Artifacts window.

This is a fantastic way to learn the basics of logic and interactivity without getting stuck on syntax. It really shows off Claude's creative side. You could build a learning game where kids battle monsters with math, which is a cool idea for parents or teachers.

Of course, these are just simple prototypes. You're not going to build the next Fortnite this way. The logic can get messy pretty quickly, and it often takes some back-and-forth to get the game mechanics just right.

5. Custom chatbots for your documents using Claude AI apps

This was the most advanced app I built, and it's where the potential for personal knowledge management really shines. The idea is to create a chatbot that's an expert on a specific document you give it.

You can upload a PDF, a text file, or just paste in a bunch of text. Then you prompt Claude to "create a chatbot that can answer questions based only on the content of this document." This technique, called Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), essentially makes Claude an expert on your data.

This is a huge help for making long, dense documents easy to search. You can upload a 100-page report and just ask it questions instead of reading the whole thing. It's great for making study guides from lecture notes or getting quick answers from a complicated user manual.

But it's important to know this is a basic form of RAG and not something you'd use for a serious business application. The chatbot you create can't connect to multiple knowledge sources (like a help center and your old support tickets), it can't handle complex business rules, and it can't integrate with tools like Zendesk or Slack. It's a chatbot in a box, cut off from everything else.

To see this process in action, the team at Anthropic has put together a short video demonstrating how you can turn a simple idea into a working application using Artifacts. This gives you a great visual overview of the workflow we've been discussing.

A video from Anthropic showing how to build Claude AI apps using the Artifacts feature.

Beyond the basics: When simple Claude AI apps aren’t enough

Playing around with "Claude AI apps" is a fantastic way to build personal tools and prototypes. For business-critical applications like customer support, the DIY approach shows limits. The focus often shifts from building and managing a tool to implementing a reliable solution that gets the job done.

This is where the idea of an AI teammate comes in. Instead of prompting an AI to build a chatbot from one document, you bring on an AI that learns from your entire business. With a platform like eesel AI, you don't build anything. You connect it to your help desk (like Zendesk or Intercom), and it instantly learns from all your past tickets, help articles, and macros. You're not building it; you're hiring it as a teammate.

Unlike a simple DIY app, a real AI teammate like eesel AI lets you test its performance on thousands of your past tickets before it ever speaks to a customer. You can start it as an AI Copilot that just drafts replies for your human agents to check. Then, once you're comfortable, you can promote it to a fully autonomous AI Agent that resolves tickets all on its own.

From building Claude AI apps to hiring teammates

Claude’s Artifacts feature is genuinely impressive. It has opened up software development to so many more people, which is a massive win for creativity and personal productivity. Building a custom calculator or a quick landing page has never been easier.

But there's a big gap between a DIY app for yourself and an enterprise-ready AI teammate built for business. For tasks that need to be reliable, scalable, and deeply integrated with the tools you already use, like Zendesk or Freshdesk, you need a solution designed for the job.

If you're ready to move from building tools to resolving issues, check out how an eesel AI Agent can handle up to 81% of your support conversations on its own. You can try eesel AI for free.