Claude in Chrome & the Office Add-ins
Two ways Claude acts where you already work: driving your browser, and living inside Excel, PowerPoint and Word. Powerful — and powerful means careful.
Add-ins that embed Claude inside Office (distinct from downloading files out of chat). Excel, PowerPoint and Word are generally available; Outlook is in beta.
Excel
Ask about any cell, formula or tab with citations; edit values while preserving formula dependencies; work with pivots and charts. Every change is highlighted for review.
PowerPoint
Builds and edits slides inside your template — reads masters, layouts, fonts and colours — and makes native editable charts.
Cross-app context (beta)
Carries the conversation from Outlook → Word → Excel → PowerPoint. "Start in your inbox, end in the deck."
Oversight
"Nothing goes out until you click send." You approve outbound actions; you accept or reject every edit.
A browser agent (Chrome extension, side panel) that sees your active tab and can navigate, click, fill forms and take actions — manage a calendar, draft replies, do web research, extract data, tidy a messy Drive. Beta on all paid plans.
The headline risk is hidden instructions on a webpage or in an email. Anthropic's mitigations cut autonomous-mode attack success from 23.6% to ~11% (and browser-specific attacks to ~0% on a challenge set; ~1% on newer configs) — better, not zero. It blocks high-risk site categories by default and asks before high-risk actions.
Advice for the room: don't use it for banking, passwords or sensitive data. Close sensitive tabs.
Interactive: Claude in Excel
A live spreadsheet with Claude in the side panel. Ask a question to get a cited answer, or request a change — and review the highlighted edit before you accept it.
Why it matters
Most enterprise work still flows through Office. Putting Claude inside Excel and PowerPoint is the wedge — that's where the hours actually go, and it's the direct challenge to Microsoft Copilot. Use the Office add-ins freely with review; keep the browser agent away from anything sensitive.
Key takeaway
Claude now lives inside Chrome and inside Office — acting where you already work. Use the Office add-ins freely with review; keep the browser agent away from banking, passwords and sensitive data.