So here’s something that dropped today that it should probably get your attention, Anthropic just launched Claude for Excel. And before you roll your eyes and think “here we go, another AI tool”, hear me out on this one.
This is not your average chatbot integration or workflow that sends you messages on Telegram. This is AI showing up exactly in the place where data work happens, in spreadsheets. So whether you are building financial models, cleaning messy datasets, or trying to make sense of your quarterly reports, this might actually change how you spend your time doing those things.
What Actually Is Claude for Excel?
Let me try to break it down in plain terms. Claude for Excel is an add-in (still in Beta) that adds Claude AI directly in the sidebar of Microsoft Excel. It is like having an analyst sitting next to you who can read spreadsheets, understands what you are trying to do and actually does the work for you.
Claude can read, analyze, modify and create Excel workbooks. It is no longer just showing you the steps of what you need to do, it does actually roll up its sleeve and can change things itself, build models, fix formulas, populate templates, and does all that while showing you exactly what it is doing and the rationale behind every move.
Claude tracks changes, explains what it did, and lets you click directly to the cells it modified. You have a trail of everything that has happened. If you think from big corporations perspective, audit trail is a must for compliance reasons so this feature is a must.
Why This Matters for the Financial World (And Everyone Else)
In case you are not aware, Anthropic (company that created Claude), launched recently Claude for Financial Services and it is their first industry specific product. The reasons as to why I think are pretty clear. They want to find applicability at big banks, asset managers, insurance companies and private equity firms.
There are people spending 80+ hours weekly in Excel building discounted cash flow models, running comp analysis, processing due diligence documents, in other words, basically living in spreadsheets. That is why it makes sense for them to go after financial services first.
And the early results from those pare of the beta testing? Pretty wild:
AIG said they compressed their business review timeline by more than 5x while improving data accuracy from 75% to over 90%. Just think about it, five times faster and way more accurate. I think we can all agree, that is transformational.
What Can it Actually Do?
Claude for Excel comes with six pre built “Agent Skills” specifically design for finance tasks:
Building DCF models - Complete with free cashflow projections, WACC calculations, scenario toggles, and sensitivity tables.
Comparable company analysis - Valuation multiples and operating metrics that can be refreshed with new data
Processing due diligence data - Turning data room documents into structure Excel sheets with financials,. customer lists, and contract terms.
Creating company teasers and profiles - From pitch books and buyer lists
Earning analysis - Extracting key metrics, guidance changes, and management analysis from quarterly transcripts.
Initiating coverage reports - With industry analysis, company deep dives, and valuation frameworks.
And the most interesting (especially for those in data space), Claude is not just working with the data you put in Excel. They have built connections to real-time market data providers such as LSEG (London Stock Exchange Group), Moody’s credit ratings, Aiera for earnings call transcripts, Chronograph for private equity monitoring, etc..
So basically, Claude will be able to pull live market data and bring it directly into your analysis. That is certainly taking your analysis to way more advanced level where you will avoid the need to make multiple assumptions along the way when you can rely on real-time data as inputs.
What This Means for Data Professionals
Now let’s talk about what this actually means for those of you who work in data, even if you are not in financial services.
The First Wave - The entry level stuff will get automated first. Think data cleaning, formatting, basic model building, assembling reports. The grunt work that junior analysts spend 70-80% of their time doing. Some experts predict that 60-70% of that low level work can be automated within the next year in financial services. Other industries won’t be far behind.
The Productivity Paradox - Here is what most of the people get wrong about this. They think that “AI will eliminate my job”. Believe it or not, that’s not what data shows. Citibank did a study and those studies showed that 54% of financial sector jobs have “high potential for automation'“, but historically technology adoption has not reduced the finance workforce. It has changed workforce mix. Obviously AI will have a greater impact, in my opinion but not to the extreme that some people take it to.
What Changes - Work shifts, less copying and pasting, less time debugging formulas, less time cleaning messy data. More time spent on thinking about what questions to ask, interpreting results in business context and communicating more insights to stakeholders.
The Jobs That Will Change (And How)
Let’s be real about what is coming:
Junior Analysts - I would say this is the most vulnerable category. The traditional path of spending 2 years of doing grunt work to learn the ropes is breakign down. If AI can build that financial model in 30 seconds, what is the learning path there? Why on earth someone would hire an analyst to do that task when AI does it better?!
Mid-level Analysts - Shifting from builder to reviewer/customizer. You are not building models from scratch anymore. You are validating AI outputs, customizing them for specific use cases, and managing multiple analysis simultaneously. You provide value in judgement, not execution.
Senior Analysts/Leads - Moving fully into strategy and interpretation. Your value is understanding market dynamics that AI cannot see, making judgement calls on ambiguous situations and shaping business strategy with insights.
New Roles Emerging - They are calling them “AI Whisperer” now. Those who can create the right prompts, validate outputs, and teach others how to use AI effectively. Hybrid roles requiring financial expertise plus AI fluency. Compliance and governance roles ensuring AI does not go off the rails.
How Can I Become Better Prepared for AI Era
Most of the data professionals are not prepared for this shift. You need to master:
Prompt engineering - How to ask AI the right questions to get useful outputs
AI validation - How to spot when AI is hallucinating or making mistakes
Business context - Understanding your domain well enough to catch AI errors
Data storytelling - Communicating insights becomes more important when analysis is commoditized
Strategic thinking - Moving from “how do I build this” to “what should we build”
The good news? You don’t need to become a computer scientist to be ready. You need to get comfortable using AI daily. Figure out what it is good at and what it sucks at. Build intuition for when to trust it and when to double check.
The Bottom Line
Claude for Excel is not just another tool. It is a signal where this whole thing is going. AI is not staying as a separate application any longer, it is being embedded directly into other tools which we use in daily basis, with Excel being one of them. It can be either an opportunity for you or a wake up call.
The Opportunity being automation of grunt work so you can spend more time on strategic, high impact work that actually moves the needle.
The Wake-Up Call, if your value proposition is “I am really good at building Excel models” or “I can clean data really fast” that value is wearing away quickly.
The future belongs to data professionals who think like business people first and technical second. Those who understand that data is an asset meant to drive business decisions, not an end in itself. Those who collaborate with AI to produce better work faster.
The tools are changing. The work is changing. The question is: ARE YOU?
What is your take on this? Are you already using AI in your data work? What scares you most about these changes? Hit reply and let me know, I read every response.