Anthropic butts in to small business, promises help with payroll and other core tasks

"Anthropic is pushing into the small business space with a set of new plug-and-play tools designed for those without a tech team budget, but be warned: Depending on your Anthropic subscription tier, some business data might get sucked up to train Claude."

"Installation is designed to be dead simple, with Pro, Max, and Teams plan users able to add it as a plugin from the Cowork space in the Claude Desktop app. Skills can then be run using natural language prompts or slash commands outlined here."

"Users will find "a package of connectors and ready-to-run workflows" inside the CSB plugin, according to the announcement. The aforementioned capabilities of the plugin are part of 15 skills based on common repeatable business tasks, while 15 agentic workflows are also included across areas like finance, operations, marketing and the like."

"As for the connectors themselves, Anthropic specifically mentions seven of them included in Claude for Small Business: Intuit Quickbooks, PayPal, HubSpot, Canva, Docusign, Google Workspace, and Microsoft 365. An Anthropic spokesperson told The Register in an email that CSB isn't limited to those connectors, but the skills and workflows rolling out for the plugin were only optimized for those connectors to start."

Claude for Small Business adds plug-and-play tools for small business owners without AI expertise. Pro, Max, and Teams users can install the plugin from the Cowork space in the Claude Desktop app. The plugin includes connectors and ready-to-run workflows for repeatable tasks across finance, operations, and marketing. It provides 15 skills and 15 agentic workflows that can be triggered using natural language prompts or slash commands. Included connectors are Intuit Quickbooks, PayPal, HubSpot, Canva, Docusign, Google Workspace, and Microsoft 365. Support for additional connectors is planned based on SMB needs, but initial optimization is limited to the listed products. Depending on subscription tier, some business data may be used to train Claude.

Read at theregister