Microsoft and Anthropic's Claude AI just got a bit friendlier. It was announced today that a new Microsoft 365 connector will allow Claude to access SharePoint, OneDrive, Outlook, and Teams.
Anthropic says that its newfound access to SharePoint and OneDrive will allow its AI to comb through documents saved "across sites and libraries," which removes the necessity of uploading the documents directly to Claude.
Claude will also be able to read your emails in order to "extract insights from your correspondences," which it believes will help users fully grasp "project status, client feedback, or team alignment."
And for Microsoft Teams — you guessed it — Claude can search through your conversations and meeting notes to get a better idea of what the team has been planning.
This collaboration is made possible using Anthropic's Model Context Protocol (MCP), a feature introduced in 2024. It's an open and universal standard created to allow for easy AI integration, and it's something that Microsoft quickly adopted as it looks for new ways to add AI to Windows 11.
Microsoft's big announcement this week regarding a new, dedicated AI assistant that can be commanded with natural language — "Hey, Copilot!" — includes Manus, an AI agent designed to quickly and easily build websites.
Thanks to an MCP connection, Manus can be commanded to grab files and photos from your PC to build a custom website while you work on other projects.
Alongside the new Microsoft 365 integration, Anthropic has introduced an enterprise search feature that's intended to make it easier to find specific data in shared projects.
Once a shared project is set up with connected apps and data sources, custom prompts can be used to quickly search a knowledge pool that includes everyone involved in the project.
Anthropic offers an example of how enterprise search can aid professionals working within a large team:
"For example, ask Claude about your company's policy on remote work and get information from HR documents in SharePoint, email discussions in Outlook, and team guidelines from various sources in one detailed report."
The newfound AI alliance won't be available for just any Microsoft 365 users. The new connector that adds Claude to SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, and Outlook is only available for Claude's Team and Enterprise subscribers. Enterprise search is also now enabled for those same subscribers.
Claude's new permissions with the Microsoft 365 connector
I don't blame you for questioning how Anthropic and Microsoft are keeping your data safe with the new Microsoft 365 connector.
As stated by Anthropic, "all permissions are delegated permissions." If you don't have access to view something in Microsoft 365, neither will Claude. The AI assistant only has read access, meaning it can't create new content, delete files, or modify anything within Microsoft 365.
Beyond that, Anthropic says that Claude "mirrors your existing Microsoft 365 permissions" and can only access data "when you explicitly ask questions requiring it."
Microsoft and Anthropic get closer as OpenAI's dominance wanes
Microsoft and OpenAI have a complicated relationship. The Redmond giant has poured billions of dollars into OpenAI in exchange for a hefty 49% stake in the AI company's for-profit division, which also resulted in ChatGPT being hosted exclusively on Microsoft's Azure servers.
That exclusivity changed in January 2025 when OpenAI announced the Stargate project. The initiative roped in key investors from Softbank and Oracle to build $500 billion worth of data centers in the US.
While Microsoft continues to hold "right of first refusal" — allowing it to have first dibs on hosting OpenAI's models on its own servers — OpenAI can look elsewhere for computing power if Azure can't keep up.
With OpenAI often treating its partnership with Microsoft as something it can use and abuse, Microsoft has begun to diversify its AI reliance. GitHub Copilot, for example, offers ChatGPT, xAI, Gemini, and Claude. That only makes sense from a business standpoint.
On September 10, 2025, Microsoft made another big move towards diminishing its overreliance on ChatGPT when it announced it would be using Anthropic's AI to run new features in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.
While OpenAI and Claude continue to work side-by-side in Microsoft 365, Claude's Sonnet 4 model is particularly adept at generating slides, PDFs, and spreadsheets from a chat prompt, a huge boon for those who frequently use Office apps.
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