May 12, 2026

Work with Claude across Microsoft 365 apps

Plus: ChatGPT in Excel and Sheets.
Evelyn Le
By
Evelyn Le
Editor, Lead with AI

Claude now works across Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Outlook

Presented by

Anthropic launched Claude for Microsoft 365, bringing Claude into the everyday flow of documents, spreadsheets, slides, and email.

The update is aimed at a very common executive workflow: start with an email, review the attached brief, build or check the model, turn it into slides, and send the follow-up without constantly moving context between tools.  

Here are the key updates:

  • Context carries across apps: You can move from Outlook to Word to Excel to PowerPoint, with Claude using the relevant context across open files instead of starting from scratch each time.
  • Ask questions and build in Excel: Claude can answer questions about cells, update assumptions, build models from scratch, and work with formulas directly inside Excel.
  • Draft and refine slides in PowerPoint: Claude can build slides in your template, edit selected content, and generate native charts and diagrams.
  • Review and enhance documents in Word: Claude can edit with tracked changes, respond to comment threads, and update content using company styles, making it easier to review rather than blindly accept.
  • Triage your inbox in Outlook: In beta, Claude can triage your inbox, draft replies that wait for you to send, and help find time across calendars. Emails and calendar invites do not go out until you approve them.
  • Turn repeatable workflows into Skills: Once a process works, teams can save it as a Skill and reuse it across Microsoft 365 apps, which matters for repeatable work like board updates, client memos, weekly reporting, or internal briefings.

Claude for Excel, PowerPoint, and Word are now generally available on all paid Claude plans, while Claude for Outlook is available in beta.

For teams already using Microsoft 365, the next useful step is to pick one recurring workflow, such as a weekly report or client update, and define how Claude should help, where humans review, and what the final output should look like.

​Learn more about Claude for Microsoft 365

Read more AI news after this:

Flagship AI Newsletter
The AI Newsletter That Makes You Smarter, Not Busier
Join over 30,000 leaders and receive our insights on AI platforms, implementations, and organizational change management.
FlexOS Course - AI Content Accelerator - Testimonial Badge

AI Leader Advanced

​​The AI Course Senior Leaders Call “the Best I’ve Ever Taken”​

Build 6 AI assistants tailored to your role in 30 minutes a day, without writing a line of code.

This course is built for senior leaders who don’t have time to figure out AI on their own, but want a practical way to use it in their work, decisions, and teams.

“Quite possibly the best course I’ve ever taken across professional qualifications and university education.” - Philip, UK

Join the June cohort

Your AI Team Updates

OpenAI launches new realtime voice models for the API

OpenAI introduced GPT-Realtime-2, GPT-Realtime-Translate, and GPT-Realtime-Whisper for developers building live voice experiences. The new models support stronger spoken reasoning, live translation, and streaming transcription, making voice agents more useful for customer support, meetings, training, and frontline workflows.

​​​Learn more about OpenAI’s new voice models​​​

ChatGPT works inside Excel and Google Sheets

OpenAI has launched ChatGPT for Excel and Google Sheets, letting users build spreadsheets, analyze data across tabs, explain formulas, fix errors, and update sheets directly inside the tools where the work happens. ChatGPT can reference cells, explain what it changed, preserve formulas and formatting, and ask for permission before editing.  

​​​Try ChatGPT for Excel and Google Sheets​​​

Codex can now use Chrome for logged-in browser tasks

OpenAI has added a Chrome extension for Codex, allowing it to work inside your signed-in browser when a task depends on tools like LinkedIn, Salesforce, Gmail, or internal company platforms. The important shift is that AI coding and task agents are moving closer to the real production layer of work, where tools, accounts, and approvals actually live.

​​​Explore Codex Chrome extension​​​

Claude users are getting higher usage limits

Anthropic is increasing Claude Code and API capacity after a new compute agreement with SpaceX. Claude Code’s five-hour rate limits are being doubled for Pro, Max, Team, and seat-based Enterprise plans, which matters for teams starting to rely on coding agents as part of real delivery workflows.

​​​Read more on Claude’s higher limits​​​

Evelyn Le
By
Evelyn Le
Editor, Lead with AI

Latest Articles

Timely insights from the Lead with AI team.

View all
AI Is Not About Doing the Same Things Faster. New OpenAI Data Shows What It Actually Changes

AI Is Not About Doing the Same Things Faster. New OpenAI Data Shows What It Actually Changes

OpenAI's new Work at the Frontier report finds 43.5% of occupation-specific AI use involves tasks from another job. Here is why that substantiates impact per hour.
Read more
OpenAI CFO: Measure "Useful Intelligence per Dollar"

OpenAI CFO: Measure "Useful Intelligence per Dollar"

OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar proposes measuring AI by useful work, not adoption. Here is why the framework holds up, and what it means for your own AI fluency.
Read more
Record a Skill on Claude: How to Teach Claude a Workflow in 5 Steps

Record a Skill on Claude: How to Teach Claude a Workflow in 5 Steps

Anthropic's Record a Skill turns a screen recording into a reusable Claude Skill. Here are the five steps, using my daily LinkedIn review as the worked example.
Read more
View all