Anthropic Introduces Waitlist for Claude for Excel

Anthropic has announced a waitlist for its new Claude for Excel, promising that its language model will be capable of understanding entire workbooks for spreadsheet enthusiasts.

Forty years after its debut, Excel remains a vital productivity tool, with research from Acuity Training indicating that two-thirds of office workers use it at least once an hour, and over a third of office time is spent on it.

Many financial models are essentially sophisticated spreadsheets, and Anthropic aims to integrate AI into corporate workflows by enhancing Excel functionality.

The initial preview will be limited to 1,000 Max, Team, and Enterprise customers, with gradual expansion as confidence builds. Users will be able to interact with Claude directly in Excel's sidebar, allowing for reading, analyzing, modifying, and creating new workbooks.

Users can inquire about specific formulas or worksheets, with cell-level citations for verification. The preview version lacks advanced features like pivot tables and macros, but Anthropic is working on these.

New connectors to financial data sources have been announced, providing real-time data access. Claude for Excel is designed to recognize common financial modeling patterns, but users are advised to verify outputs.

Efforts to move users away from Excel to standardized solutions are ongoing, as reliance on spreadsheets has led to significant errors. New Zealand's public health system and the UK's Afghan data breach highlight the risks.

If Claude can detect errors that could lead to economic disruption, it would mark a significant advancement.