Anthropic announced on October 16, 2025 that Claude now integrates directly with Microsoft 365 and adds an enterprise search capability to gather information from documents, emails, and chats in one place. Can you imagine preparing a report without switching between apps? This integration aims to do exactly that: give you relevant context where you already work. (anthropic.com)
What was announced
The main news is a connector for Microsoft 365 called MCP connector that lets Claude access your documents, communications, and calendar to give answers and analyses with real organizational context. They also launched a feature that enables centralized enterprise searches inside a shared project customized with your company name. (anthropic.com)
- Support for Microsoft SharePoint and OneDrive: search and analyze documents in sites and libraries without manually uploading them.
- Access to Outlook: read email threads to extract project status, feedback, or communication patterns.
- Integration with Teams: search chats, channels, and meeting notes to find decisions and follow-ups. (anthropic.com)
How it works in practice
Think of this as an assistant that can combine scattered information to give you an actionable answer. Need a summary of a project's status? Claude can pull the spec from SharePoint, the emails from Outlook, and the Teams notes to deliver a coherent report.
For organizations, Anthropic proposes a shared "project" that comes with customized prompts to make searches easier and that everyone in the company can access automatically once an admin sets it up. It’s ideal for onboarding, answering questions about internal policies, or quickly finding who knows what inside the company. (anthropic.com)
Availability and steps to get started
The Microsoft 365 connector is available today for customers on Claude Team and Enterprise plans. Administrators must enable the connector for their organization before users can authenticate with their accounts. Enterprise search is also active for Team and Enterprise organizations, and requires admins to customize the shared project and select data sources. (anthropic.com)
If you are an administrator: first enable the connector, then connect the tools, and finally manage which data is available inside the shared project. (anthropic.com)
Privacy, control, and practical considerations
Anthropic emphasizes that the integration is managed from the organization, which means control and curation of sources stay with your IT or compliance team. That reduces risk but doesn't eliminate it: think about retention policies, permissions, and regular reviews before opening broad access.
What about security? Anthropic links to their security and compliance pages for enterprise customers, so it’s wise to review those documents as part of your rollout. (anthropic.com)
Why it matters for companies and professionals
Because it cuts the time you spend searching: less copying and pasting, fewer tabs to open. For small teams it means accessing collective knowledge without building an expensive internal solution. For large teams, it's a way to scale onboarding and responses to strategic questions.
It’s also an invitation to improve information governance: when tools like Claude can read emails, calendars, and documents, it’s worth clearly defining what data is sensitive and who can consult it.
Final thought
This integration isn't magic; it's another step in the trend of bringing organizational context directly into AI assistants so you can work faster and with less friction. Are you ready to rethink how your team searches for information, or would you rather keep a thousand tabs open?
Check the official note for technical details and setup steps: Anthropic note on productivity and connectors. (anthropic.com)
