Anthropic and Perplexity both dropped major finance updates on back-to-back days. Here’s what each one actually does, what plan you need, and three things to try this week — even if you don’t work in finance.
What Just Happened
On May 4, 2026, Perplexity launched Computer for Professional Finance — 35 ready-made finance workflows pulling live data from Morningstar, PitchBook, Daloopa, and Carbon Arc.
One day later, on May 5, Anthropic announced 10 finance agents plus full Microsoft 365 integration (Excel, Word, PowerPoint). Dario Amodei and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon shared a stage in NYC — the first time ever — to announce it.
Finance is one of the most cautious industries in the white-collar world. Two of the biggest AI companies just rebuilt it. That tells you everything about where every other industry is going next.
They overlap, but they’re for different jobs. Here’s the cleanest way to think about it:
Anthropic
10 Finance Agents + Microsoft 365
Best for: doing the work itself — building models, drafting decks, writing memos.
Plan: any paid Claude plan (Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise).
Where it lives: inside Excel, Word, and PowerPoint as add-ins.
Perplexity
35 Finance Workflows
Best for: getting the data — tearsheets, comps, market research.
Plan: Perplexity Max ($200/mo) for individuals.
Where it lives: a workspace that connects to Morningstar and PitchBook.
Anthropic’s 10 agents: Pitch Builder, Meeting Preparer, Earnings Reviewer, Model Builder, Market Researcher, Valuation Reviewer, GL Reconciler, Month-End Closer, Statement Auditor, KYC Screener.
Perplexity’s workflow categories: Real Estate, Private Equity, Public Equities, Hedge Funds, Asset Management, Wealth Management, Investment Banking, Insurance, Credit, Corporate Finance.
A Bloomberg Terminal seat costs about $32,000 per year. Perplexity Max is $2,400 per year. Roughly 13× cheaper.
It doesn’t replace every Bloomberg use case. Bloomberg still wins on real-time trading data and deep institutional licensing. But for research, tearsheets, comps, and screener-style work? The math just changed for everyone who isn’t a top-tier hedge fund.
Quote of the week
“I want to know about asset swaps and Treasury bid-ask spreads, and quitting the markets, and investment grade.” — Jamie Dimon, on what he asks Claude. He said Claude Code built him “a huge dashboard… with all the backup, and all the research, and it was very accurate” in 20 minutes over a weekend.
You don’t need to work in finance to use any of this. Pick the one that maps to your job and try it this week.
01 — If you live in Excel
Build a 3-statement model from a 10-K
Install the Claude Excel add-in (any paid plan). Paste in a public 10-K link. Ask: “Build a 3-statement model with sensitivity tabs from this filing. Show me the working assumptions in a separate sheet I can edit.” Then ask Claude to draft the matching PowerPoint summary that auto-updates if you change an assumption.
02 — If you do client research
Run a Company Tearsheet workflow on any public stock
In Perplexity Max, run the Company Tearsheet workflow. You get a one-page report with valuation, peer comps, earnings history, and analyst ratings in under 10 minutes. Export as PDF and you have a deliverable. This used to take a junior analyst half a day.
03 — If you build pitch decks
Use the Pitch Builder agent in Claude Cowork
In Claude Cowork on a paid plan, install the Pitch Builder plugin. Give it a public ticker. Ask: “Build a comparable-company analysis and a draft pitch deck for [TICKER]. Tell me which slides you need more data on before I show this to anyone.” The last sentence is the trick — it forces Claude to flag where it’s guessing.
Honest limitations
Most enterprise data still requires a license — Perplexity gives you the workflow, but you may need your own Morningstar or PitchBook seat to plug in real data. Claude’s Excel and Word add-ins ship on paid plans, but advanced finance agents on Anthropic’s Managed Agents platform are still in public beta. Expect some setup pain on enterprise deployments.
The takeaway
Finance jobs are about to consolidate fast. The barrier to using AI at your 9-to-5 just dropped to zero — Claude lives directly inside Excel, Word, and PowerPoint now. Be the AI person on your team before everyone else catches up. The people who learn this in May 2026 will be running their departments by 2027.
For Your Job
If you’re ready to set up Claude for your specific job — with custom skills, connectors, and automations built around the work you do every day — I built a bootcamp just for you.
Start the Weekend Bootcamp →Go Even Further
If you’re looking to go even further, join mine and my husband’s community group where we give you all the AI agents and systems running our businesses.
Join the Community →© 2026 Mariah Brunner. All rights reserved.