Anthropic Claude Now Lets You Chat with Your Google Docs

Anthropic has released a new set of features for Claude.ai. Most importantly, it integrates Google Docs with the AI chatbot to ‘directly reference’ content inside your chats.

You can add a Google Doc file in a chat or a project, which allows Claude to access the same and use the information to generate contextual outputs. “For example, Claude can summarise long Google Docs and reference historical context from the files to inform decision-making or help with strategic planning,” said Anthropic. That said, this feature is only available for Claude Pro, Team and Enterprise plans. 

Anthropic also mentioned that once a document is added, Claude will automatically sync to its latest version. Moreover, you can also add multiple Google Doc files in a single chat. However, Anthropic says that Claude cannot access images, or comments from the document.

Another feature in the recent update lets you choose between three output styles: Formal, Concise, or Explanatory. “Whether you're a developer writing formal documentation, a marketer crafting clear brand guidelines, or a product team planning extensive project requirements, Claude can adapt to your preferred way of writing,” said Anthropic in the announcement. 

The new update also includes custom styles, which basically lets you add preferences and pre-requisite knowledge to the chatbot’s output. 

Similarly, you can also add ‘global profile preferences’ to ensure Claude considers the information when generating an output. 

In this case, OpenAI launched the Custom Instructions feature to ChatGPT a year early. Moreover, recent updates to GPT-4o focused on bolstering its creative writing capabilities, and it also stood atop several benchmarks. 

However, it isn’t all good news for Claude users. It seems like Claude isn’t letting users access Sonnet 3.5 on the free version. While several users on X were able to spot that the model can only use Haiku, even we can confirm the same, based on what we noticed on the free version of Claude. On the bright side, Haiku will keep getting better, as mentioned by Dario Amodei, CEO at Anthropic. 

Why no one have talked about the fact that claude switched the model from Claude 3.5 sonnet to 3 haiku for all free plan users 🙄 pic.twitter.com/qdedLUzGyE

— Mouad (@nadzi_mouad) November 27, 2024

In a recent podcast episode with Lex Fridman, he said that Anthropic’s plan is to first ‘shift’ the capabilities of existing models. He even went on to say that Haiku 3.5, its smallest model, is as powerful as Opus 3. As Haiku continues to get better, Amodei also confirmed that there are plans in place for the flagship Opus 3.5. 

Moreover, Anthropic recently announced another round of funds, raising $4 billion from Amazon Web Services (AWS), bringing Amazon’s investments in the AI startup to $8 billion.