Anthropic plugs Claude AI into Outlook, Teams, and OneDrive so you don’t have to read your email and chats — here’s how it works

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As a researcher following AI developments, I’m excited to share that Microsoft and Anthropic have made Claude AI more integrated with everyday work tools. They’ve just announced a new connector that lets Claude directly access files and information from SharePoint, OneDrive, Outlook, and Teams, which should make it much easier to use within the Microsoft 365 suite.

Anthropic announced that its AI can now search through files stored in SharePoint and OneDrive, eliminating the need to manually upload them to Claude.

Claude will be able to read your emails to understand what’s happening in your projects, gather feedback from clients, and see how well your team is working together. It aims to provide helpful summaries and insights from your conversations.

With Microsoft Teams, Claude can now review your chats and meeting notes to understand what your team is working on and has discussed.

We’re able to work together thanks to Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP), a new feature launched in 2024. MCP is an open standard designed to simplify adding AI to applications, and Microsoft has already embraced it as they explore ways to enhance Windows 11 with AI.

This week, Microsoft revealed Copilot, a new AI assistant you can control with everyday language – just say “Hey, Copilot!” – and also introduced Manus, an AI tool that simplifies and speeds up website creation.

As a big fan, I’m really excited about how Manus works! It connects to my computer and can automatically grab all the files and photos I need to create a website – and it does this while I’m busy with other stuff, which is a huge time-saver.

In addition to working with Microsoft 365, Anthropic now offers a search tool for businesses. This feature helps teams quickly locate specific information within shared projects.

After you establish a collaborative project and link your apps and data, you can use tailored prompts to instantly search all the information and contributions from everyone working on it.

Anthropic illustrates how a powerful search tool can help people collaborate effectively in large organizations.

You can ask Claude about things like your company’s remote work policy, and it will gather information from multiple places – HR documents, email conversations, and team guidelines – to give you a complete and easy-to-understand report.

The recently announced AI partnership isn’t for all Microsoft 365 customers. Access to the new feature that integrates Claude with apps like SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, and Outlook is limited to those who already have a Claude Team or Enterprise subscription. These subscribers also now have access to enterprise-level search capabilities.

Claude’s new permissions with the Microsoft 365 connector

It’s understandable to be concerned about how Anthropic and Microsoft protect your data when using the new Microsoft 365 connector, and I don’t think you’re wrong to ask about it.

According to Anthropic, Claude can only access information that you already have permission to see in Microsoft 365. Since Claude only *reads* data, it can’t create, delete, or change anything within Microsoft 365 – it simply can’t do anything you aren’t already authorized to do.

Anthropic explains that Claude respects your existing Microsoft 365 access settings and only uses your data when you specifically ask it to in your questions.

Microsoft and Anthropic get closer as OpenAI’s dominance wanes

As an analyst, I’ve been following the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership closely, and it’s definitely a complex one. Microsoft has invested billions into OpenAI, gaining a significant 49% ownership in their for-profit arm. A key outcome of this investment is that ChatGPT runs exclusively on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.

Previously, access was limited, but in January 2025, OpenAI launched Project Stargate. This involved partnerships with major investors like Softbank and Oracle to construct $500 billion worth of data centers across the United States.

Microsoft has the first chance to host OpenAI’s AI models on its servers, but OpenAI is free to use other providers if Microsoft’s Azure cloud service can’t meet their needs.

OpenAI frequently leverages its partnership with Microsoft, sometimes to Microsoft’s disadvantage. As a result, Microsoft is now exploring other AI options. For instance, GitHub Copilot now supports models from companies like xAI, Gemini, and Claude, in addition to ChatGPT. This is a smart business move for Microsoft.

On September 10, 2025, Microsoft took a significant step to reduce its dependence on ChatGPT by partnering with Anthropic and integrating its AI into popular programs like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.

Both OpenAI and Claude are available within Microsoft 365, but Claude’s Sonnet 4 model excels at creating presentations, documents, and spreadsheets directly from your chat requests, which is a significant benefit for regular Office users.

(via The Verge)

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2025-10-17 17:10