The Claude spark alongside the Google Docs, Sheets and Slides icons. Image: Anthropic (Claude spark); Google Docs, Sheets and Slides icons via Simple Icons (CC0)
Anthropic has put Claude inside Google Docs, Sheets and Slides. The company launched Claude for Google Workspace in public beta on Tuesday, an add-on that opens Claude in a sidebar next to whatever file you have open, on the same Google apps where Gemini is already built in.
It is available on every paid Claude plan. Anthropic also released new Docs, Sheets and Slides connectors, in beta, that let Claude create and edit Google files from the Claude app itself.
What it does in each app
Claude can read the open file, see what you have selected and change it directly. Anthropic gives an example for each app:
- Docs: fixing a sentence or restyling a heading without touching the formatting around it. Bigger rewrites arrive as suggestion cards that highlight the passage and can be applied or dismissed.
- Sheets: writing formulas, building pivot tables and native charts, and adding tabs. For data cleaning or joins it can pull a range into Python and write the results back.
- Slides: building new slides from the deck’s own layouts and themes, then checking for elements that overlap, run off the slide or are hard to read.
By default Claude runs in an “Ask before edits” mode, showing each change as an approval card and waiting for a yes. An “Accept all edits” mode lets it work through a task without stopping.
Your Claude setup comes with it
Signed in with a Claude account, the sidebar uses the same models, connectors and skills as the Claude app. Anthropic’s example is a quarterly business review deck built from Salesforce account history and call notes pulled through the Google Drive connector, saved as a skill so a team can repeat it. On Enterprise plans, controls such as the Compliance API, customer-managed encryption keys and audit export apply to the add-on too.
Going the other way, the new connectors let you paste a Google file link into a Claude chat, or ask for a new doc, sheet or deck, and Claude will create or edit it, opening it beside the conversation on supported setups. Anthropic says Claude’s access follows your existing Google sharing permissions. On Team and Enterprise plans an owner has to switch the connectors on first.
How to get it
The add-on is installed from the Google Workspace Marketplace, then opened from Extensions > Claude > Open Claude inside a file. Admins can roll it out to a whole domain or chosen groups from the Google Admin console. Anthropic’s help guide covers setup.
The launch lands days before Google cuts free Gemini users down to its smallest model on October 9. It also chips at the edge Google has from owning the apps people already work in, a point we looked at in our analysis of the AI labs’ moats.
Why it matters
Google’s biggest advantage over Anthropic is that its AI already sits inside the documents millions of people open every day. A Claude sidebar in those same files means Workspace users no longer have to pick Google’s assistant just because it is the one that is already there.
Sources: Anthropic: Claude now works with Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides; Claude Help Center; Google Workspace Marketplace.
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