ZDNET’s key takeaways
- I tested Claude Sheets on surveys, shopping, and app feedback.
- You can point to a statistic and ask Claude to explain it.
- One dataset fed a spreadsheet, two whiteboards, and a slide.
Earlier this week, Anthropic introduced Claude Sheets, a spreadsheet tool built directly inside Claude. It also added Whiteboard and Data. I put Sheets to the test with a series of data analysis projects.
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The biggest “wow” came when I asked Claude to rerun my customer-feedback analysis with an earlier start date. About 10 minutes later, it had updated all five spreadsheet tabs and both whiteboards entirely on its own.
What I gained by working directly in Claude Sheets
Although this is my first time using Claude Sheets, I can see a number of major advantages compared to using a connector to Google Sheets:
- Built directly in Claude: There’s no need to move data between tools. That data movement could run into limits and might only be able to work on a section at a time. It’s basically the difference between sending data through a pipe and using it natively.
- One dataset can feed a variety of outputs: I’ll show how I use Claude to update its own sheet, a whiteboard, a slide, and a data representation tool, all in one conversation, all without having to import or export anything. Massive updates are possible with Claude, but doing so between Claude and Google (or ChatGPT and Google) can naturally run into limits and interoperability snags.
- Claude knows what you’re looking at: There’s a little pop-up bubble available on every element of each artifact. You can point Claude to an individual cell, column, graphic, or symbol and tell it to make changes. My favorite was pointing to a specific statistic and telling Claude “Explain this” without having to carefully describe what “this” is.
- Claude, in theory, can check its own work: I often tell Claude to double-check its work while programming. I applied that practice to the spreadsheet as well. You can instruct Claude to carefully review all its work and update it, all from within the app.
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Claude’s artifacts are very similar (probably by design) to Google Docs. The Artifacts section serves as its own file storage, as well as a launch point for each of the Claude apps, such as Sheets, Whiteboard, and Data.
How I turned an old Claude conversation into a spreadsheet
In August, I did an informal survey using two services that specialize in connecting experts who want to be quoted with journalists who might want to interview them. At the time, I even built a custom Claude skill for performing analysis of data from those two specific services.
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The result was a Google Sheet with some analysis data. This time, however, I wanted to keep it all inside Claude. In fact, I wanted to start from that old Claude session and see what I could get Claude Sheets to do for me.
All I did to start was tell Claude to turn the analysis into a Claude Sheet.
It created a bunch of tabs with aggregated information.
Then I asked it to do two things. The first was to make the data look more like ZDNET’s native style. The second was to make it more attractive.
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This is a really good view into why native tool integration within Claude is so powerful. Claude Sheets does spreadsheet stuff. But Claude Data does data analysis, charting, and presentation.
Without needing to export anything or drag files into a selection bar, Claude just transformed my sheet data into a very clear and attractive summary document.
How Claude Sheets organized my Waterpik research into a buying guide
Here’s another look at turning an AI research project into a spreadsheet. Last month, my Waterpik broke, and I wanted another one, preferably delivered from Walmart that day or from Amazon via Prime overnight. As many of us have seen, AIs are quite good (when not locked out of Amazon) at performing that kind of analysis.
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I gave Claude this assignment: “Analyze all the research data here and give me a Claude Sheet that very clearly represents the options, choices, winners, so that I can make a clear purchase decision. Analyze all the research data here and present me a clear spreadsheet that breaks down the options and choices.”
Claude returned a Claude Sheet with three tabs: Walmart same-day, Amazon research, and Decision. Walmart had some options for same-day delivery, but none with a big enough water reservoir.
Amazon had five possible choices. All were clearly presented in the spreadsheet.
On the Decision tab, Claude presented a clear winner and runner-up recommendation. If I had wanted to, I could have gone into the spreadsheet and done some of my own calculations or markup. Its top pick? The MOCEL I already bought. I like it. It has a little trouble draining water out of the reservoir, but otherwise, I’m quite satisfied with the product.
What Claude Sheets and Whiteboards showed me about why users quit my app
Now, let’s move on to a Claude Sheets analysis constructed from data exported from my server. I have a “why did you uninstall?” question that I ask users who download my security app and then uninstall it. Their answers give me insights that I can use to help improve the product.
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I first tried running the data through ChatGPT back in 2023. Doing so helped convince me that the then-new generative AI thing could be a game changer.
It’s now three years later. There’s a ton of new data that I haven’t examined from three additional years of user uninstalls. And now, we have Claude Sheets.
The first thing I did was tell Claude to build me a detailed sheet representing data from only the last 12 months. It created a spreadsheet with a summary and tabs containing reasons, sentiment, and comments.
Then I switched to Claude Whiteboards and asked the AI to give me a representation of the key issues I need to be paying attention to, based on customer feedback.
Whiteboards converts the data to a more graphical representation that can be tweaked, edited, and moved around. The Whiteboards app is somewhat competitive with FigJam (from Figma), Mural, and Lucidspark.
While I like to factor in all user feedback and continually improve the product, one item jumped out at me. At its core, my product helps a user block access to their own website. I have a very full-featured paid add-on that enables selective access. But users apparently want one page opened for free. The users uninstalled my security app because they thought that feature was unavailable.
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But here’s the thing: It is available. It has been available for years. What this analysis shows me is that I don’t make that capability discoverable enough or that I need to provide a setup wizard that offers to enable that capability right from the start.
Claude updated five spreadsheet tabs and two whiteboards in 10 minutes
That’s valuable, but I promised to show you a Claude Sheet feature that’s a huge productivity win. When I first set up five spreadsheet tabs and two whiteboards, I used Nov. 1, 2025, as my starting point. But then, I realized I’d done a fairly large product update in September.
I told Claude to “Refactor the full spreadsheet as well as both whiteboards, assuming the start date of September 1, 2025 instead of November 1, 2025.” Claude worked for about 10 minutes while I brewed a fresh cup of coffee and played with the dog. And, boom, an entirely updated analysis was available to me. Doing all that by hand would have taken hours.
I decided to use one final Claude artifact: Slides. I asked Claude to “Make me a clear, compelling, and attractive slide representing the key takeaways from this data.” Here it is.
How I kept working on the same Claude Sheet in a new chat
What’s super powerful about this is that all of it takes place in Claude, and all of it is accessible to Claude without needing outside connectors.
Later, after working on the spreadsheets, I went into the Artifacts section and copied the URL of the uninstall spreadsheet. Then, in a completely new session, I pasted in that URL and told Claude to add a new tab.
Claude was able to continue working on the document. That means these things can be modified, updated, tweaked, and adjusted over time. They can also serve as a data capture hub for agentic work. That’s pretty powerful stuff.
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Would you rather work directly in Claude Sheets or connect Claude to a Google Sheet you already use? Let us know in the comments below.
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