Anthropic expands Claude with new office tools, takes on Microsoft

Artificial intelligence is gradually being integrated into daily office work. From preparing meeting notes to organising project schedules and managing spreadsheets, AI tools are taking on tasks that were previously performed by employees themselves.

Anthropic is the company working to help people make this transition. On Tuesday Anthropic announced three features for its AI assistant, Claude: Claude Meetings, Claude Whiteboards and Claude Sheets. I see this move as part of a plan by Anthropic to make Claude more useful, for businesses instead of just having conversations and answering questions.

Claude can now join Google Meet calls

The interesting addition is Claude Meetings. This feature lets employees invite Claude to Google Meet calls. Claude can follow the conversations. Help with work while the discussion unfolds.

For example when team members talk about a project Claude can prepare action plans create timelines on a whiteboard and answer questions in the meeting chat. Claude can also find business data and past documents, from work applications so employees do not need to stop their conversation to search for information.

Furthermore, there is less work to be done once the meeting concludes: Claude makes meeting notes, action items, and other materials available on its website, allowing teams to pick up the discussion exactly where they left off.

Anthropic states that it has incorporated safeguards to protect the privacy of meetings. Claude identifies itself within the meeting chat and cannot join calls that include external guests unless an administrator grants the necessary permission. If an unauthorized guest joins an ongoing call, Claude automatically leaves the session.

For now, Claude Meetings is available in beta for subscribers of Team and Enterprise plans who use Google Meet. Anthropic plans to add support for other platforms in the future.

New tools for ideas and spreadsheets

Claude Whiteboards is designed for teams that regularly hold brainstorming sessions and plan projects. Instead of copying ideas from Claude to another application, employees can work together on a shared board. They can organize plans, set deadlines, and create timelines. Once the work is complete, Claude can convert the board into a presentation or a document. It is also possible to generate the board during a meeting in real time.

Anthropic has also introduced Claude Sheets for spreadsheet-related tasks. Users can ask the AI to create documents, such as hiring budgets or campaign tracking tools. The tool supports multiple tabs, formulas, formatting options, and drop-down menus.

Employees can continue to make modifications collaboratively with Claude. The AI edits the spreadsheet cells directly and explains the changes made, making it easy to review its work. Both features are available in beta for paid users, across mobile, web, and desktop versions.

Competition in the office software market grows

Anthropic has also made "Claude Data"-formerly known as "Claude Dashboards"-available to all its paid users. This tool connects to enterprise platforms, such as CRM systems and data warehouses, allowing company information to be transformed into interactive dashboards, written reports, and narrated videos.

Additionally, the company has introduced connectors for applications such as Adobe, HubSpot, and Atlassian, enabling users to access them directly from within their conversations in Claude.

The timing of this announcement is very important. OpenAI has recently made ChatGPT more powerful for use, in the workplace. At the time Meta was working on "Muse"-an artificial intelligence agent that can build applications to help users finish tasks. This kind of progress shows how quickly things are changing.

With these features Anthropic is moving beyond the chatbot market. I see that its goal is to integrate Claude into office workflows and that places Claude in a position to compete with Microsoft, Google and other companies in the artificial intelligence sector.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kahekashan

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Kahekashan is a passionate technophile with a keen eye for cutting-edge gadgets, emerging technologies, and everything in the digital realm. Raised in a Defence family with strong values and a background in literature, she has consistently pursued excellence in every endeavour. Her last full-time assignment involved content writing with the Indian School of Business.

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