But now Anthropic's Claude AI tool has also made its way into those three Google Workspace apps via sidebar integration. Currently, Claude for Google Workspace is in beta for Claude Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise subscribers. And of course, you'll need a Google account that is allowed to install Google Workspace Marketplace apps like Claude.
One key difference between the Google Workspace connectors in Claude and the Claude extension is that the connectors let Claude search and reference what you prompt it to look for in your Google Drive, Gmail, and Calendar during a chat. The Claude extension inside Docs, Sheets and Slides directly accesses and interacts with the file you're already in.
Now that Claude is as easy as clicking on "Extensions" from inside Docs, Sheets and Slides to access it as a sidebar assistant, here are seven ways you can use it to benefit you.
I connected Claude to my daily apps — here are the 5 that actually made it useful Claude has 4 built-in skills I use constantly — here's how to find them Claude can now send Gmail emails — here's why you might want to test it first Activating Claude for Docs gives you a bunch of options from the start. Those options include "Check for inconsistencies," "Copy-edit this document," "Summarize this contract," "Flag off market terms," "Draft a memo" and "Write meeting notes." The prompt I used made Claude review my lengthy document, offer several helpful suggestions, and let me apply all recommended changes with a single click. Watching Claude make all those edits right inside my document while preserving my most important information and cutting down the word count is impressive.
The prompt: Restructure this document to have clearly defined sections with proper headings.
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Restructuring my document initially resulted in Claude asking me for permission to run a script, which I granted. Afterward, it completed its job by including the appropriate headings I requested, giving me three edits I chose to let it apply and finally adding a title. All of those changes came together to make my document read a whole lot better and refined to the point where I didn't see the need for any more edits.
Opening up Claude in Sheets highlights several "Skills" you can use. Also, you're given the option of creating and managing your own Skills on your Claude account. For anyone who works extensively with putting together spreadsheets that include simple and complex formulas, you can ask Claude to point out and fix any formula errors it comes across. I told Claude to create a bunch of broken formulas on my spreadsheet and then made sure it fixed those same errors to see how everything turned out. It fixed all those errors while also laying out the reasoning behind its fixes.
