Deon Menezes AI Harness Engineer
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Guide · 9 October 2026 · from the Reel

Animations with Claude,
in plain words.

Claude can now turn your text, charts and images into an animated video. Here is how to do it with the new Claude Motion, and how to do it on any plan.

From the Reel. Animated in code by Claude.

See it move

Three panels from the Reel.

Claude writes the code. The code draws it.
A hard chapter becomes a diagram.
The race panel, my take in the Reel.

These loops are from my Reel. Claude wrote each one as code (Way 2 below). They were not made with the Claude Motion product: it is not on my plan yet.

Way 1

Claude Motion.

● Beta · Team and Enterprise plans

Anthropic launched it on 8 October 2026. Claude writes code that animates your text, charts, shapes and images, and you download the result as an MP4.

  1. Check your plan.

    Claude Motion is in beta on Team and Enterprise plans. On Team it is on by default. On Enterprise an owner turns it on in Organization settings, under Artifacts.

  2. Start an animation.

    Type /motion in the message box, or select Output and choose Motion. You can also just ask Claude for an animation in any chat.

  3. Say what you want.

    Tell it who will watch, where it will play and roughly how long it should be. Attach the report, data or images you want it built from, so the animation uses your own content.

  4. Fix what is off.

    Ask Claude for changes, like slowing a scene down or changing a number, or adjust it yourself in the editor. Each animation is code, so one change leaves the rest alone.

  5. Export it.

    Click Export and choose MP4. Animations start private to you. To share one, open it and click Share.

Way 2

Any plan, in code.

● Works without Claude Motion

This is how the animations in my Reel were made. Claude Code wrote one HTML file, rendered every frame in Chrome and joined the frames into a video.

  1. Ask in a normal chat.

    Open Claude and ask for an animation of your topic as an HTML artifact. Claude writes the code and the animation plays next to the chat.

  2. Give it your material.

    Paste the chapter, your notes or your numbers. Say who it is for and how long it should run. One idea per scene works best.

  3. Change it by asking.

    "Make the bars grow one at a time." "Slow down the second scene." Claude edits the code and the animation updates.

  4. Save it as a video.

    The simple way: record your screen while it plays. The clean way: open the project in Claude Code and ask it to render the animation to an MP4. It can use Remotion, a tool that turns code into video, or Manim for maths.

Prompts to copy

Start with one of these.

  • A hard topic

    Swap in your own topic. Works in Claude Motion and in a normal chat.

    Make a 30-second animation that explains [topic] to a 15-year-old. One idea per scene, simple shapes, short labels. Build it as an HTML artifact I can play.

  • A chapter from a book

    Paste the chapter under the prompt.

    Here is a chapter I find hard. Pick the single hardest idea in it and turn it into an animated diagram, step by step. Use only what the chapter says.

  • A chart

    Paste the numbers or attach the chart.

    Animate this chart. Bars grow one at a time, the biggest one is highlighted, and the last frame says the takeaway in one line. Do not change any number.

Keep in mind

Four things before you start.

  • It is a beta, and not on every plan. As of 9 October 2026 Claude Motion is on Team and Enterprise only.
  • It is not a video generator. Anthropic says it does not use a video generation model, so there is no generated footage and no AI-generated people. It is built for explaining your own work.
  • It uses your limits. Claude Motion counts toward your plan's usage, and longer or more complex animations use more than a typical message.
  • Remotion has its own licence. If you use it at a company, read the licence page first.

Launched the same day: Claude Dashboards. You ask a question about your company's data in plain language and Claude builds a dashboard that stays current. It is in beta on paid plans.