Anthropic’s Claude is the latest AI tool to roll out new functions: The chatbot will soon allow users to create and edit Excel spreadsheets, documents, PowerPoint slides, and PDFs.
Users will be able to create these new materials entirely with written prompts, sent through the Claude chat interface.
This new AI feature announcement comes soon after ChatGPT’s latest free feature debuted, allowing users to group their prompt conversations into folders, and right on the heels of Anthropic’s 1.5 billion settlement over a class action lawsuit from book authors upset over unauthorized data training.
Can You Access the New Features Yet?
The file creation feature is rolling out over the next few weeks to Pro users. It’s already available to Max, Team, and Enterprise plan users.
It’s an opt-in function currently: To find it and turn it on, you’ll need to head to Settings, look for the experimental section under Features, and look for “Upgraded file creation and analysis.”
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According to ZDNet, Anthropic is positioning the tool as a way to avoid the chores that go into formatting and reformatting media like spreadsheets and slides:
“Some examples Anthropic provided included turning raw data into cleaner projects with analysis, charts, and written insights; building spreadsheets without having to worry about formulas; and transforming your content from one format to the other, for example, a PDF into Slides.”
Will These Tools Change Your Workflow?
The new tools will allow users to change up file formats, turning a doc file into a PDF with a single command. (Granted, that’s already possible with a dropdown menu button in Google Docs, too.)
Users might use the tool to reformat their school homework. However, the same tool can fully generate the writing prior to reformatting it, so it’s possible that this is just one more way for students to easily create an essay or other homework rather than writing it themselves. This just might be yet another AI nightmare for school teachers everywhere.
One word of warning from Anthropic’s press release: Claude requires internet access to create or edit your personal files, and this “may put your data at risk.”
AI Technology Continues Growth
The new functions from Claude aren’t the only evidence that AI tools are continuing their highly-hyped rapid growth.
Huge AI companies continue to cut new deals to further expand. Most recently, Oracle and OpenAI inked a truly huge $300 billion cloud computing deal that will sink 4.5 gigawatts of energy into AI over the next five years.
Plenty of concerns are still remaining on AI’s rocky road to long-term sustainability, and many experts are predicting a dot-com style bubble will pop before the technology truly settles into use. Until then, we’ll keep debuting new features while investing ever more energy and money into the tech.
