From an earlier video
This is material from an earlier video — Claude’s interface and features may have changed since. The idea and the approach still hold.
Styles in Claude is a game-changing feature that lets you create personalised assistants for different areas of work.
Unlike ChatGPT, where the style applies to every conversation, Claude lets you pick the right approach to communication on a per-situation basis.
The problem with universal styles in other AIs
🤖 What’s wrong with ChatGPT?
ChatGPT’s problem: the settings only let you specify one general response style, which applies to every conversation.
A real-life example:
- You set up a motivating style for work
- You ask: “How do I fix a door handle?”
- You get: “Believe in yourself! You’ll definitely master this door handle! Every craftsman started small…” 🤦♂️
✅ Claude’s solution: situational styles
Claude lets you dynamically pick a style depending on the task:
- Business correspondence → Formal style
- Learning to code → Explanatory style
- Quick questions → Concise style
- Psychological support → a custom “Psychologist” style
📋 Standard styles
🎯 Normal — standard answers
- A balanced approach
- Medium-length answers
- A universal tone
- When to use: for most everyday tasks
⚡ Concise — short answers, straight to the point
- Maximally compressed information
- No unnecessary detail
- Direct answers to questions
- When to use: for quick references and facts
🎓 Formal — a scholarly approach
- An academic style of presentation
- Use of terminology
- Structured delivery
- When to use: for documents, research, presentations
📚 Explanatory — educational answers
- ⭐ The most popular style!
- Detailed explanations with examples
- Step-by-step instructions
- Context and background
- When to use: for learning new topics
💡 Tip: The Explanatory style is perfect for taking in new information — Claude won’t just give you an answer, it’ll also explain the “why” and the “how”.
Creating your own styles
Step 1: Click “Tools” → “Use styles”
Step 2: Choose “Create & edit styles”
Step 3: Click “Create new style”
Step 4: Choose how to create it:
- Upload an instruction — a ready-made file describing the style
- Paste text — a sample of a known author’s style
- Create with prompts — a step-by-step wizard
🧠 Ready-made prompts for creating styles
Psychologist-consultant
Name: Psychologist-consultant
Instruction: Respond like an experienced psychologist-consultant:
- Identify the possible psychological problem or state
- Suggest 2-3 concrete ways to resolve it
- Ask 5 clarifying questions to understand the situation deeply
- Use an empathetic and supportive tone
- Avoid diagnoses, focus on practical advice
- Suggest self-help techniques and exercises
Example answer: "From your description, this could be related to [state]. I'd recommend trying [technique]. Tell me, how long has this been going on?"
Copywriter-marketer
Name: Copywriter-marketer
Instruction: Respond like a creative copywriter with marketing experience:
- Create catchy headlines and slogans
- Use psychological triggers and sales techniques
- Adapt the tone to the target audience
- Offer options for A/B testing
- Explain your choice of words and techniques
- Think about conversion and the user's action
Answer structure:
1. Analysis of the task and audience
2. 3-5 text variants
3. Explanation of the techniques used
4. Testing recommendations
Programmer-mentor
Name: Programmer-mentor
Instruction: Respond like an experienced senior developer:
- Explain concepts in plain language with analogies
- Show code with detailed comments
- Point out potential problems and best practices
- Suggest alternative solutions
- Ask clarifying questions about the task's context
- Recommend resources for further study
Answer format:
1. A brief explanation of the concept
2. A code example with comments
3. Possible improvements
4. Links to documentation
Business analyst
Name: Business analyst
Instruction: Respond like an experienced business analyst:
- Analyse the situation in terms of KPIs and ROI
- Suggest metrics for measuring success
- Use frameworks (SWOT, Porter's 5 Forces, etc.)
- Structure answers as lists and tables
- Request additional data for analysis
- Focus on practical solutions
Structure:
1. Analysis of the current situation
2. Key problems and opportunities
3. Prioritised recommendations
4. Metrics for tracking progress
📝 Creating a style from a sample
The “Famous author’s style” method:
- Pick an author — a blogger, writer, expert
- Find 3-5 texts by that author
- Combine them into one file and upload it to Claude
- Prompt: “Analyse this author’s writing style and create an instruction for imitating it”
Example for a YouTube blogger’s style:
Analyse this YouTube blogger's style and create an instruction:
- How they structure content
- Which words and phrases they use
- How they address the audience
- The tone and mood
- How they present complex information
Create a style for writing scripts in their manner.
Automating styles with text expanders
🚀 Beeftext for Windows
Beeftext is free software for automatic text replacement.
Setup:
- Download Beeftext from the official site
- Create a new combo
- Keyword:
claudepsych - Replacement: the full prompt for the psychologist-consultant
Result: type claudepsych anywhere → the full prompt gets inserted automatically
🍎 Raycast for macOS
Raycast is an advanced launcher with snippet support.
Setup:
- Install Raycast
- Go to Extensions → Snippets
- Create a new snippet with a keyword
- Add the full prompt for the style
Practical usage scenarios
💼 For business
Morning — Email manager:
Respond like a professional email manager:
- Brief, clear replies
- A businesslike but friendly tone
- Structured delivery of information
- A call-to-action in every email
Afternoon — Content strategist:
Work like an experienced content strategist:
- Create ideas for social media
- Adapt content to different platforms
- Analyse trends and engagement
- Suggest creative formats
🎓 For learning
Learning languages — Polyglot:
Respond like a foreign-language teacher:
- Explain grammar in plain words
- Give examples from everyday life
- Correct mistakes with explanations
- Suggest exercises to reinforce learning
Programming — Code Review:
Work like a senior developer doing a code review:
- Analyse the code for readability and performance
- Suggest improvements with explanations
- Point out potential bugs
- Recommend best practices
🏠 For personal life
Planning — Life Coach:
Respond like a personal productivity coach:
- Help set and achieve goals
- Create realistic plans
- Motivate and support
- Analyse obstacles and how to solve them
Combining styles with other features
🔍 Style + Extended thinking
A powerful combination:
- Turn on “Extended thinking”
- Choose the Explanatory style
- Activate “Research mode”
Result: you get a detailed analysis with visible reasoning and up-to-date information.
📁 Style + Projects
Creating specialised projects:
- Create a project for a specific area
- Set the matching style as the default
- Add relevant files and documents
- Use it for recurring tasks
Managing styles: best practices
📊 Organising styles
Style categories:
- Work: Formal, Business Email, Code Review
- Creativity: Copywriter, Content Creator, Storyteller
- Learning: Explanatory, Mentor, Language Teacher
- Personal: Life Coach, Psychologist, Friend
🔄 Iterating and improving
The style-optimisation process:
- Create a basic version of the style
- Test it on different tasks
- Gather feedback from the results
- Improve the instructions and examples
- Add specific requirements
Example of improvement:
Version 1.0: "Respond like a psychologist"
↓
Version 2.0: "Respond like a psychologist, ask clarifying questions"
↓
Version 3.0: "Respond like a psychologist, identify the problem, suggest solutions, ask 5 questions"
📈 Performance analytics
Criteria for evaluating styles:
- Fit for the task — are you getting the result you need?
- Consistency — is the answer quality stable?
- Time saved — how much faster do you solve tasks?
- Result quality — has the quality of your work improved?
Advanced techniques
🎭 Multi-persona styles
Creating a “team of experts”:
Name: Team of experts
Instruction: Respond on behalf of a team of 3 specialists:
- A technical expert (focus on implementation)
- A business analyst (focus on profitability)
- A UX designer (focus on the user)
Each gives their point of view, with a shared team conclusion at the end.
🔀 Adaptive styles
A style that changes by context:
Instruction: Adapt the style to the type of question:
- Technical question → a detailed explanation with examples
- Creative request → an inspiring, creative approach
- A problem → an analytical, solution-oriented style
- A personal question → an empathetic, supportive tone
Determine the type of question and switch automatically to the right style.
Conclusion
Claude’s styles open up incredible possibilities for personalising your AI assistant for any task. Unlike ChatGPT with its universal approach, Claude lets you:
✅ Pick a style per situation for a specific task ✅ Create personal assistants for different areas ✅ Automate them with text expanders ✅ Flexibly tune and continuously improve them
By combining styles with Claude’s other features (projects, extended thinking, artifacts), you get a powerful system for solving any task — from psychological support to business analysis.
🎯 Start simple: create 2-3 styles for your main tasks, test them, and gradually expand the collection.
📺 Watch the demo: Creating personal assistants in Claude
Related articles:
- Claude Artifacts: games, quests, assistants
- Deep analysis from Claude: the triple mode
- Projects in Claude — for advanced routine tasks
Tags: claude styles personalisation assistants automation ai