Claude Code brings out the art of words

Anthropic is bringing Voice Mode to Claude Code, the company’s AI assistant for developers. The audio implementation represents an important step towards hands-free, text-based communication.

Thariq Shihipar, an engineer at Anthropic, he announced slow release of X on Tuesday. According to Shihipar, voicemail now accounts for about 5% of users, with a larger rollout planned in the coming weeks.

The voice interface was designed to control the action by allowing users to interact with the Claude Code through spoken commands. To activate, type /word to activate, then speak your command and Claude Code will do what it wants. For example, “refactor the authentication middleware.”

Word format is now running in Claude Code. It has ~5% of users today, and will continue to do so in the coming weeks.

You will see a note on the welcome screen after you login. /word to unlock! pic.twitter.com/P7GQ6pEANy

– Thariq (@trq212) March 3, 2026

It is not yet clear what the limitations of the new capabilities are, including whether there are restrictions on voice communication or other technical issues. It’s also unclear if this was developed in collaboration with a third-party AI voice assistant like ElevenLabs, which Anthropic had a partner with. he says in conversation.

The company has yet to respond to TechCrunch’s request.

Anthropic activated Voice Mode for its Claude chatbot last May, allowing users to interact with the brand through voice on various services.

The competition for AI coding assistants is fierce, with Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Google, and OpenAI all vying for developers’ attention. However, Claude Code is one of the most widely used tools on the market today. In February, Anthropic report that Claude Code’s run-rate rate exceeded $ 2.5 billion, doubling since the beginning of 2026. Also, weekly users have doubled since January.

So far, Claude’s mobile app has seen a a huge leap in user growth after the company refused to allow the Department of Defense to use AI in their surveillance or autonomous weapons. After that, the program to climb top of the US App Store charts, through ChatGPT.