Claude for Excel

Claude for Excel is Anthropic's Excel add-in, one of four Claude for Microsoft 365 add-ins alongside Claude for PowerPoint, Claude for Word and Claude for Outlook. Anthropic made it generally available on May 7, 2026, on the Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans of Claude. It runs in a sidebar inside Excel on the web, on Windows and on Mac.

What it does: answer questions about an open workbook with cell-level citations, and adjust assumptions while keeping formula relationships intact. It identifies errors and their root causes, builds new models or populates existing templates, and works across multi-tab workbooks. It can also sort, filter, edit pivot tables, apply conditional formatting and create data validation dropdowns on request.

Instructions set in the add-in apply to every conversation in Excel. Chat history is stored locally in the browser rather than on Anthropic's servers, and inputs and outputs are deleted from Anthropic's backend within 30 days, with exceptions Anthropic lists.

With a Claude account, one conversation can span the open workbook, deck, document and inbox, so a model built in Excel can become a deck or a memo without re-explaining it. Connectors pull in outside context, and Anthropic names S&P Global, LSEG and Daloopa among the common ones. Skills apply reusable task recipes automatically. Both are enabled once in Claude settings and work the same way across all four add-ins.

Organizations can also deploy the add-in through Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud Vertex AI, Azure AI Foundry or an LLM gateway, without individual Claude accounts. On that path Anthropic lists connectors and Skills as coming soon, and working across apps, dictation and file uploads as unavailable, so the routing choice decides which features a team gets.

There is no separate fee, and the add-in is included in paid Claude plans. Pro is $17 per month billed annually or $20 monthly, and Max is $100 per month for 5x usage or $200 for 20x. Team standard seats are $20 per seat per month billed annually or $25 monthly, with premium seats at $100 or $125. Enterprise is $20 per seat per month billed annually with a 20-seat minimum, plus usage at API rates.

Anthropic does not recommend Claude for Excel for final client deliverables without human review, for audit-critical calculations without verification, or for models holding highly sensitive or regulated data without proper controls. Data tables and macro or VBA operations are unsupported. It warns that spreadsheets from outside sources can carry hidden prompt-injection instructions and advises using the add-in only with trusted files. The add-in does not run on Excel 2016 or 2019 perpetual or volume licenses, on Excel for iPad or Android, or on older Microsoft 365 builds.

Anthropic's enterprise page lists SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR and CCPA compliance. For Enterprise organizations with the Compliance API enabled, Claude for Excel sessions are included in it, and Anthropic labels that coverage public beta. The add-in is still not included in Enterprise audit logs and does not inherit custom data retention settings. Enterprise organizations, and deployments that run directly on a cloud provider or gateway, can send a full audit trail to their own OpenTelemetry collector.

Anthropic's launch post quotes ServiceNow on adopting Claude for Microsoft 365. On Microsoft Marketplace, Anthropic's Claude for Excel listing showed 2.8 out of 5 from 167 ratings in October 2026.

Buyers who want an assistant built into Microsoft 365 by Microsoft itself can compare Microsoft 365 Copilot. For longer tasks across local files and connected apps rather than one open workbook, Anthropic offers Claude Cowork.

Current state Q4 2026: Claude for Excel has been generally available since May 7, 2026, and Compliance API coverage of the add-in is in public beta. Anthropic's documentation now covers native operations such as pivot tables and data validation, and shared context with Claude for Outlook.