You're using Claude at 20%

Stop paying for a tool you barely use

July 03, 2026

In partnership with

I have a browser tab open with Claude in it right now. You probably do too. So here's the uncomfortable part: most of us are running it at maybe 20% of what it can actually do.

I came across a breakdown from an AI pro on LinkedIn and it stopped me mid-scroll. The point was simple and a little annoying to read, because it was true. The tool most founders are sleeping on isn't a shiny new app or another integration or some model from a different lab. It's Claude, sitting right there, idling at a fraction of its capacity.

The author nailed something I've felt for a while. People activate the tool, poke around for ten minutes, then decide it isn't transformative. But the transformation was never in the tool. It's in knowing how to actually deploy it. As they put it, the teams that win aren't the ones with the most tools. They're the ones who went deepest on the right ones.

That line stuck with me. So let me walk you through the features this expert says most people have never touched. I reorganized them into a numbered rundown so you can spot the ones you're missing.

Blu Dot surpasses 2,000% ROAS with self-serve CTV ads

Home furniture brand Blu Dot blew up on CTV with help from Roku Ads Manager. Here’s how:

After a test campaign reached 211,000 households and achieved 1,010% ROAS, the brand went all in to promote its annual sales event. It removed age and income constraints to expand reach and shifted budget to custom audiences and retargeting, where intent was strongest.

The results speak for themselves. As Blu Dot increased their investment by 10x, ROAS jumped to 2,308% and more page-view conversions surpassed 50,000.

“For CTV campaigns, Roku has been a top performer,” said Claire Folkestad, Paid Media Strategist, Blu Dot. “Comping to our other platforms, we have seen really strong ROAS… and highly efficient CPMs, lower than any other CTV partner we've worked with.”

Using Roku Ads Manager, the campaign moved from a pilot to a permanent performance engine for the brand.

*Ad

The 10 Claude features hiding in plain sight

  1. Projects. Persistent workspaces that load your files, preferences, and instructions automatically. No more re-explaining yourself at the start of every session. Set the context once and it stays put.

  2. Memory. Claude holds onto useful context across your chats. You set it up once, then let it quietly work in the background.

  3. Style customization. Train it on your voice a single time and it applies that voice everywhere going forward. Great if you're tired of editing robotic drafts into something that sounds like you.

  4. Claude Code. The author is clear this isn't just a code helper. It's an autonomous agent that writes, runs, tests, and manages entire projects on its own.

  5. MCP. This connects Claude to your external tools and data sources. Suddenly it's working across your whole stack, not trapped inside a chat window.

  6. Computer Use. Claude can navigate interfaces and take action directly on your screen. It clicks, it types, it does the thing.

  7. Deep Research. Multi-source reports compiled automatically. Not a quick summary, a proper research output you can actually use.

  8. Batch API. Overnight jobs at 50% of the cost. If you're running real volume, this genuinely changes your unit economics.

  9. Prompt caching. Saves up to 90% on repeated context. Most people have never even heard of it, which is wild given the savings.

  10. Agent teams. Multiple Claude instances collaborating in parallel on large projects. Think of it as spinning up a small crew instead of a single assistant.

I'll be honest, I knew about maybe half of these before reading the post. Prompt caching and the Batch API were the two that made me stop and rethink how I'd been running things.

See what enterprise-ready AI support looks like

How are leading teams getting AI support to work? We're breaking down the playbook, live July 9.

*Ad

The model you pick matters more than you think

Here's a detail a lot of folks completely miss. It's not just about features. It's about picking the right model for the job. Most people run everything through one model, then wonder why their results feel inconsistent.

The simple map I use now:

Sonnet 5 for everyday, daily work. Fast, sharp, good enough for the bulk of what you do.

Opus 4.8 for complex reasoning and heavy coding tasks. The one you reach for when the problem has teeth.

Haiku 4.5 for speed and scale when you need fast answers at volume.

Matching the model to the task is one of those small shifts that quietly upgrades everything. You stop fighting the tool and start using it the way it was built to be used.

Why this actually matters for you

The bigger lesson isn't really about Claude. It's about how we treat powerful tools in general. We chase the next app, the next integration, the next launch, while the thing we already pay for sits half-explored. The author compared people who use Claude at 20% to people using a fancy search bar, and that stung a little because it's fair.

So here's a practical way to close the gap. Pick one feature from the list above that you've never tried. Maybe it's setting up a Project so you stop re-pasting your brand guidelines. Maybe it's turning on Memory. Spend twenty minutes going deep on that one thing this week. Then pick another next week. Going deep beats going wide, every time.

What I love about this reframe is what it does to the tired "AI isn't living up to the hype" complaint. The hype is real. The gap is just in how we deploy it. And closing that gap costs nothing extra, because you're already paying for the tool.

HR and IT need to work as one. Here's how

When HR and IT don't talk, people fall through the cracks. This guide fixes the handoffs that matter most.

*Ad

The one move I'd make tonight

I keep coming back to the question the author left me with, so I'll hand it to you: what's the feature you stumbled on late that actually changed how you work?

For me it was prompt caching. I'd been eating the full cost of the same context over and over without realizing there was a switch for it. Twenty minutes of reading saved me real money the next month.

Open Claude tonight. Pick the one feature on that list you've been ignoring. Give it twenty minutes. That's the whole move, and it's the difference between owning a tool and actually using it.