← Back to all free guides

Finance
AI Week

Anthropic and Perplexity both dropped major finance updates on the same day. Here’s what each one actually does, what plan you need, and three things to try, even if you don’t work in finance.

On May 5, 2026, Anthropic announced 10 ready-made finance agents, alongside its Claude add-ins for Excel, Word and PowerPoint, now generally available. Dario Amodei and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon shared a stage in New York for the first time to talk about it. (Anthropic, Fortune)

The same day, Perplexity launched Computer for Professional Finance: 35 ready-made workflows that can plug into licensed data from Morningstar and PitchBook, among others. (Perplexity)

Finance is one of the most cautious industries in the white-collar world, and two of the biggest AI companies went after it on the same day. That tells you where every other industry is going next.

Anthropic vs Perplexity

They overlap, but they’re for different jobs.

01

Anthropic’s 10 finance agents

Best for doing the work itself. Think models, decks and memos.

Where it lives. Plugins in Claude Cowork and Claude Code on paid plans. The Claude add-ins for Excel, Word and PowerPoint are on Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise.

The agents. Pitch Builder, Meeting Preparer, Earnings Reviewer, Model Builder, Market Researcher, Valuation Reviewer, General Ledger Reconciler, Month-End Closer, Statement Auditor and KYC Screener.

The free plugins on GitHub →

02

Perplexity’s 35 finance workflows

Best for getting the data. Think company tearsheets, comps and market research, with citations.

Where it lives. Perplexity Computer, with workflows for ten areas such as real estate, private equity and public equities. Data from Morningstar, PitchBook, Daloopa and Carbon Arc connects with your own subscription.

Plan. Computer is on Pro with limited weekly use, and Max ($200 a month) comes with far more credits. (How credits work)

The Math

A Bloomberg Terminal seat is widely reported at about $32,000 a year (Bloomberg doesn’t publish prices). Perplexity Max is $2,400 a year billed monthly, or $2,000 billed yearly (Perplexity). That’s more than 13 times cheaper.

It doesn’t replace everything. Bloomberg still wins on real-time trading data and deep institutional licensing. For research, tearsheets and comps, the math just changed for everyone who isn’t a top-tier fund.

“I want to know about asset swaps and Treasury bid-ask spreads, and quitting the markets, and investment grade.”Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorganChase, on what he asked Claude Code

He said it built a big dashboard in about 20 minutes over a weekend, "with all the backup, and all the research, and it was very accurate about what I wanted." (Fortune)

3 Things To Try

You don’t need to work in finance for any of this. Pick the one that matches your job.

01

Build a 3-statement model from a 10-K

For anyone who lives in Excel. Install the Claude add-in from Microsoft AppSource on a paid plan (setup). Download a public company’s 10-K from SEC EDGAR, attach it in the Claude sidebar and paste this. The add-in shares context with PowerPoint, so you can then ask for a summary deck from the same model.

10-K To 3-Statement Model
You're a financial analyst building a model I can trust and edit. I've attached [Company]'s latest 10-K. 1. Pull the last 3 years of the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement from the filing into separate tabs. 2. Build a linked 3-statement model with a 5-year forecast. Every forecast cell must be a formula, not a typed number. 3. Put every assumption (revenue growth, gross margin, opex as % of revenue, capex, working capital days, tax rate) on one "Assumptions" tab, with blue font for inputs and a note on where each starting value came from in the 10-K. 4. Add a sensitivity table showing how [net income / free cash flow] changes as revenue growth and gross margin move up and down. 5. Add a "Checks" tab: balance sheet balances, cash ties out, no hardcoded numbers in forecast rows. When you're done, tell me in 5 bullets what you built, which 3 assumptions matter most, and anything in the filing you couldn't find or had to estimate. Mark any estimate clearly. Don't overwrite anything without asking.

02

Run a company tearsheet

For anyone who does client research. In Perplexity Computer, run the Company Tearsheet workflow, or paste this for any public company. You get a one-page overview with citations you can export as a PDF.

One-Page Tearsheet
Build a one-page company tearsheet on [Company / ticker] for a [client meeting / investment committee / my own research]. Include: - What the company does, in 2 plain sentences - Revenue, growth and margins for the last 3 years, with the source for each number - 4-6 closest public peers and how they compare on growth, margin and valuation - The last 2 earnings calls: what management promised and what changed - 3 bull points and 3 bear points - What to watch in the next 90 days (earnings date, product launches, lawsuits, debt maturities) Rules: cite every number. If two sources disagree, show both. If you can't find something, write "not found" instead of estimating. Deliver it as a one-page PDF.

03

Draft a pitch with the Pitch agent

For anyone who builds decks. In Claude, open the plugins page (Customize, then Plugins, or just Plugins on newer accounts), add a plugin and paste https://github.com/anthropics/financial-services. Pick the Pitch agent from the list. Then give it a ticker with this prompt. The last paragraph is the trick, because it forces Claude to flag where it’s guessing.

Comps And Pitch Deck
You're a junior banker preparing a first-draft pitch on [TICKER] for [the client / my team]. The goal of the pitch is [e.g. "a sell-side conversation" / "an acquisition idea" / "a coverage initiation"]. 1. Build a comparable-company analysis: pick 6-8 peers, explain in one line why each belongs, and show revenue growth, EBITDA margin, EV/Revenue and EV/EBITDA. 2. Summarize recent precedent deals in the sector if you can source them. 3. Draft a 10-slide deck: situation overview, company snapshot, market, comps, valuation range, key risks, next steps. 4. Use my firm's template if I've attached one. Otherwise keep it clean: one idea per slide, numbers sourced in the footer. Before I show this to anyone: list every slide where you need more data or where you're guessing, and what would fix it. Never present an estimate as a fact.

Honest Limitations

Most premium data still needs a license. Both tools give you the workflow, but you may need your own Morningstar, PitchBook or FactSet seat to plug in real data. Anthropic says the Excel add-in isn’t meant for final client deliverables or audit-critical math without a human checking it, and you should only use it on spreadsheets you trust.

The barrier to using AI at your 9-to-5 just dropped to almost zero, because Claude lives inside Excel, Word and PowerPoint now. Be the AI person on your team before everyone else catches up.