Anthropic updates Claude Cowork with finance plugins and office job connectors

Anthropic announced updates to its Claude AI helper during a virtual event on Tuesday. The changes enable the tool to perform better at tasks for specific jobs including design, human resources and wealth management roles. The updates also allow Claude to work inside applications such as Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint. The new plugins support functions like modeling scenarios in private equity work and developing job descriptions and offer letters in human resources. They also assist with creating creative briefs for design work and summarizing vendor proposals for operations tasks. Anthropic developed the financial services plugins in collaboration with FactSet, S&P and LSEG. Apollo contributed to sales plugins. Instead of operating as a separate chatbot, Claude can now live inside enterprise software tools. It pulls context and data without users needing to leave the active window. Companies will be able to customize the plugins to integrate with applications including Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar and DocuSign. Scott White, Anthropic's head of product for enterprise, said the company is building something complementary to existing software and tools. He described the company's view of itself as a platform trying to own every workflow.