Anthropic announced several updates for the financial industry: the launch of Claude for Excel (research preview), which reads, analyzes, and modifies workbooks in the Microsoft Excel sidebar, providing explanations and change logs with cell traceability; and expanded real-time information connectors to include Aiera (including Third Bridge data streams), Chronograph, Egnyte, LSEG, Moody's, MT Newswires, and more. Six pre-built Agent Skills were also officially released, including comparable company analysis, DCF, due diligence packages, company teasers/profiles, financial report interpretation, and first review report generation.
According to Vals AI's Finance Agent benchmark, Claude Sonnet 4.5 (Thinking) ranked first with an accuracy rate of 55.3%. Anthropic stated that the new capabilities will be integrated into investment research, credit rating, post-investment monitoring, and data room search. Initially, they will be available to users of Max, Enterprise, and Teams on a limited basis, with a gradual rollout. The Excel plug-in will initially be available to a waiting list of 1,000 users, and accompanying documentation will provide connector configuration and prompt word guidance.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is the current status of Claude for Excel and who is it suitable for?
A: Research preview (Beta), for small-scale candidate testing of Max, Enterprise, and Teams, focusing on model diagnosis, hypothesis updating, and formula debugging.
Q: What new real-time connectors have been added?
A: Aiera (including Third Bridge), Chronograph, Egnyte, LSEG, Moody's, MT Newswires, etc. can be used for market information, research reports and post-investment data.
Q: What do the pre-built Agent Skills do?
A: Covers standardized tasks such as comparable companies, DCF, due diligence data package, company teaser/introduction, financial report highlights and first review report.
Q: What are the performance criteria?
A: The Finance Agent list shows that Sonnet 4.5 (Thinking) has an accuracy rate of 55.3%, which is used to evaluate the performance of analyst-type tasks.
Q: How do I join a trial or learn about deployment?
A: Join the candidate list through the official website. The Help Center provides guides for connector setup and financial workflows.
