You can do a lot more with generative AI (genAI) in Google Sheets than get help writing spreadsheet formulas. Thanks to extensions such as Claude for Sheets, you can also do things like:Determine whether text sentiment is positive, negative, or neutralClassify text into categoriesExtract email addresses, phone numbers, and other entities from plain textAnd you can do this without having to write computer code in a language like Python.Instead, you only need spreadsheet formulas as simple as:=claudeExtract("sentiment of positive, negative, or neutral", A2)Lets see how to implement some of these use cases with the help of Claude for Sheets, an add-on for Google Sheets offered by Anthropic, maker of the Claude family of large language models (LLMs).Just remember:LLMs arent always accurate. The more important your task, the more effort you should put into checking Claudes results.Think twice about sending sensitive data to an LLM. If its corporate data, follow company policies.Claude for Sheets costs money to use. Its a pretty trivial amount for moderate amounts of text, but understand the pricing if youve got a massive data set. (Although for a lot of data, performance will be slow and youre probably better off with another solution.) More on pricing in a bit.Claude for Sheets setupYoull need two things in addition to a Google account in order to run Claude for Sheets: an Anthropic API key and the Claude for Sheets extension.You can get an Anthropic API key by creating a free account. Once you log in, your dashboard home page should show an option to create API keys.You can request an API key from the Anthropic dashboard home page.Sharon Machlis / IDGClick the button to create a key and heed the warning to copy your API key (just a string of characters) when it appears once you close that dialog box, you wont be able to access it again on the Anthropic website. Store the key securely, just as you would a password.Youll likely need to add some money to your Anthropic account before you can use the Claude API. You shouldnt need much unless youre uploading a lot of data. (I added $20 months ago and still have more than half left and Ive coded public-facing apps using Claude in addition to playing with Sheets.)To add Claude for Sheets to your Google account, download it from the Google Workspace Marketplace and install it.You need to set up Claude for Sheets in each spreadsheet where you want to use it. Create a new Google spreadsheet and go to Extensions > Claude for Sheets > Open Sidebar. Then click on the sidebars hamburger menu (three horizonal lines), choose Settings, and click on API provider. You want to choose Anthropic. Enter your API key where it says the key is missing. srcset="https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/claude_for_google_sheets_02_enter_key.jpg?quality=50&strip=all 976w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/claude_for_google_sheets_02_enter_key.jpg?resize=257%2C300&quality=50&strip=all 257w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/claude_for_google_sheets_02_enter_key.jpg?resize=768%2C896&quality=50&strip=all 768w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/claude_for_google_sheets_02_enter_key.jpg?resize=877%2C1024&quality=50&strip=all 877w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/claude_for_google_sheets_02_enter_key.jpg?resize=597%2C697&quality=50&strip=all 597w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/claude_for_google_sheets_02_enter_key.jpg?resize=144%2C168&quality=50&strip=all 144w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/claude_for_google_sheets_02_enter_key.jpg?resize=72%2C84&quality=50&strip=all 72w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/claude_for_google_sheets_02_enter_key.jpg?resize=411%2C480&quality=50&strip=all 411w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/claude_for_google_sheets_02_enter_key.jpg?resize=308%2C360&quality=50&strip=all 308w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/claude_for_google_sheets_02_enter_key.jpg?resize=214%2C250&quality=50&strip=all 214w" width="877" height="1023" sizes="(max-width: 877px) 100vw, 877px">Enter your Anthropic API key after opening the Claude for Sheets sidebar.Sharon Machlis / IDGNext, scroll down and choose a default model. Anthropic offers several different models under the Claude umbrella, and their capabilities and pricing vary considerably. Haiku is the smallest, fastest, least expensive, and least capable model offered in Claude for Sheets. Id start there while experimenting. srcset="https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/claude_for_google_sheets_03_choose_model.jpg?quality=50&strip=all 729w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/claude_for_google_sheets_03_choose_model.jpg?resize=253%2C300&quality=50&strip=all 253w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/claude_for_google_sheets_03_choose_model.jpg?resize=587%2C697&quality=50&strip=all 587w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/claude_for_google_sheets_03_choose_model.jpg?resize=142%2C168&quality=50&strip=all 142w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/claude_for_google_sheets_03_choose_model.jpg?resize=71%2C84&quality=50&strip=all 71w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/claude_for_google_sheets_03_choose_model.jpg?resize=405%2C480&quality=50&strip=all 405w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/claude_for_google_sheets_03_choose_model.jpg?resize=303%2C360&quality=50&strip=all 303w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/claude_for_google_sheets_03_choose_model.jpg?resize=211%2C250&quality=50&strip=all 211w" width="729" height="865" sizes="(max-width: 729px) 100vw, 729px">Choose a default model to use in Claude for Sheets. Haiku is the smallest and least expensive.Sharon Machlis / IDGAs of this writing, Haiku costs 80 cents per million tokens in and $4 per million tokens out. One million tokens is roughly 4 million characters or 750,000 English words. The priciest and most powerful model, Opus, is $15 per million input and $75 per million output. The middle model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, is $3/M in and $15/M out.Whatever you choose as the default model for a spreadsheet, you can override it by specifying a different model in the formulas you create, as well see in the examples below.Case 1: Sentiment analysisStart by entering the text you want to analyze in your A column. I entered the following five sample review text blurbs into my spreadsheets A column (ReviewText), one item per row:ReviewTextSentimentThe new iPad Mini 7 has a great display, speedy response, and is light enough to hold for long periods of time. Its a significant upgrade from my old (ancient?) iPad 5. My lone nit is that the form factor is thicker and less sleek now due to the change in connectors, but Im still glad I upgraded.This desktop computer has a better processor and can handle much more demanding tasks such as running LLMs locally. However, its also noisy and comes with a lot of bloatware.The charger is affordable and does exactly what I want.This charger doesnt work like I expected.This charger seems like a great value until you try to use it. The connection is flakey and my device often ends up not fully charged overnight. In column B (Sentiment) more specifically, in cell B2 next to my first text item, I added the formula=claudeExtract("sentiment analysis of 'positive', 'negative', or 'neutral", A2, "claude-3-5-haiku-latest", "temperature", 0)And then I clicked and dragged the formula down the rest of the rows next to cells with text.Heres an explanation of the formula.=claudeExtract uses the syntax claudeExtract(property, text, model, argumentValuePairs)Property is defined in the help file as The property to extract from the text, e.g. phone. For this case, I used a property of sentiment analysis of positive, negative, or neutral since thats what I want Claude to extract from my text.Text is my source cell location. If my first row of text is in cell A2, text value will be cell A2. Clicking and dragging the formula down the rest of the column applies it appropriately to the other text cells.Although I chose a default model in Claude for Sheets main settings, I specified a model in the formula too so I could add optional arguments at the end of the formula. Google Sheets formulas dont like it if you skip expected parameters when adding more at the end. Anthropics Model names documentation helpfully lists the specific syntax to use in formulas for each of its available models. In this case I chose claude-3-5-haiku-latest which specifies the latest available version of the Claude 3.5 Haiku model.The one optional argument I added was to set the models temperature to 0. An LLMs temperature tells it how much randomness to use. Should it opt for the most likely result again and again (low temperature) or try to mix things up a bit (higher temperature)?Its sometimes helpful to view temperature as a measure of model creativity. Higher temperature can be nice when chatting with an LLM, so it doesnt sound robotic and repetitive. However, for technical tasks, more likely to be accurate is a better idea than be creative, and that means lower temperatures. Anthropic advises: For multiple-choice or analytical tasks, youll want [temperature] close to 0.Note: This ability to set model parameters like temperature is one advantage of using the LLMs API via a spreadsheet or computer programming instead of a free chatbot without granular temperature control.ResultsBelow is Claudes sentiment analysis on my sample text. I agreed with all of them:Haiku: Sentiment analysisReviewTextSentimentThe new iPad Mini 7 has a great display, speedy response, and is light enough to hold for long periods of time. Its a significant upgrade from my old (ancient?) iPad 5. My lone nit is that the form factor is thicker and less sleek now due to the change in connectors, but Im still glad I upgraded.positiveThis desktop computer has a better processor and can handle much more demanding tasks such as running LLMs locally. However, its also noisy and comes with a lot of bloatware.neutralThe charger is affordable and does exactly what I want.positiveThis charger doesnt work like I expected.negativeThis charger seems like a great value until you try to use it. The connection is flakey and my device often ends up not fully charged overnight.negative Two important tips:If you see errors or delays in some cells, you can ask Claude for Sheets to recalculate those by opening the Claude extensions dropdown menu (Extensions > Claude for Sheets) and clicking on Recalculate all DEFERRED / THROTTLED / #ERROR! Cells.Claude may not finish all your spreadsheet calculations in one pass. If that happens, you can ask it to recalculate cells with missing values via the Extensions menu.Sharon Machlis / IDGTo keep results from updating which might change them and costs more API money copy and paste the column values only (excluding the formulas) to a new column and then delete the original column with formulas. Anthropic says Claude for Sheets results are cached for a week, so opening the spreadsheet again after a week may cause everything to recalculate.Case 2: Text classification into categoriesFor this test, I took a few social media posts about the R programming language (often used for data analysis), genAI tools, and other topics some modified to try to make the topics slightly less obvious and asked Claude to categorize them as Data, Generative AI, Security & Privacy, or Other.I used the same workflow as above, just changing the formulas property text using natural language instructions:=claudeExtract("one or more categories among 'Data', 'Generative AI', 'Security & Privacy'. If more than one apply, include all. If none apply, say 'Other'.", A2, "claude-3-5-haiku-latest", "temperature", 0)Results werent bad but were imperfect. The Haiku model didnt apply both Security & Privacy and Generative AI to the text about LLM vulnerabilities, and it didnt know that R involves data.Haiku: Text categorizationKyle has some great resources for using the GIS data sets he mentions, especially Analyzing US Census Data: Methods, Maps, and Models in R and the tidycensus packagedataOpenAI today announced new model 4o basically 4o preview out of preview it says is better and faster than the preview version. And multimodal. Also a new pro tier for ChatGPT and its 4o model, at an eye-popping $200/month.generative aiAn Introduction to R is a free online book by several professors (Univ of Aberdeen, Danish Technical Univ) and R practitioners that aims to, well, introduce you to using R. If you teach R, feel free to use some or all of the content in this book [with attribution]. https://intro2r.comotherPrompt injection and supply chain vulnerabilities remain the main LLM vulnerabilities but as the technology evolves new risks come to light including system prompt leakage and misinformation. https://www.csoonline.com/article/575497/owasp-lists-10-most-critical-large-language-model-vulnerabilities.htmlsecurity & privacyThis story tracked thousands of US military & intel personnel coming & going from classified sites, incl. NSA hubs & nuclear vaults. We know where they sleep, what they eat, and which brothels they visit. Its an ocean of blackmail & national secrets within reach of every spy agency in the world.data,security & privacyLogging on to Bluesky for the first time felt a bit like walking into your apartment after a professional deep clean. The layout is the same, as are the appliances and furniture. But it just felt good to be there. I wanted to hang out.other When I tried with the Sonnet model (by swapping in claude-3-5-sonnet-latest as the model name), it did apply both categories to the LLM security text but also couldnt recognize the R blurb as being data-related. The Opus model (claude-3-opus-latest) didnt know R is data-related either.My conclusion on categorizing text after this and other experiments: Either the text needs to be fairly straightforward about topics, or the prompt should include specific instructions about phrases likely to show up in your data that the LLM doesnt know how to classify. In other words, experiment a bit and add examples or more detailed explanations when needed. When I added Text about the R programming language is topic Data. to the end of my prompts property text, Haiku applied data to my R-related posts.Case 3: Entity extractionI used some sample text to test extracting email addresses and phone numbers. The text was originally generated by a chatbot (Perplexity), and I modified it a bit. I then added that text to a new tab on the spreadsheet, and inserted the following formulas in columns B and C:=claudeExtract("all phone numbers", A4, "claude-3-5-haiku-latest", "temperature", 0)=claudeExtract(all email addresses", A4, "claude-3-5-haiku-latest", "temperature", 0)Haiku performed quite well on this one:Haiku: Phone number and email address extractionTextPhoneEmailThe team is at marketing@company.com and (914) 737-9938. Headquarters is @ 512 Main St.914-737-9938marketing@company.comJohn Smith from accounting (j.smith@business.net) will be out of office until Friday. For urgent matters, reach him at 888-555-9012.888-555-9012j.smith@business.netContact support: help_desk@tech.org or 1-800-555-3456 Technical issues? sarah.tech@company.com For appointments: +1 (444) 867-53091-800-555-3456, +1 (444) 867-5309help_desk@tech.org, sarah.tech@company.comMeeting notes from yesterday: Dave (d.wilson@dept.com) will handle the project Marketing team contact: marketing@company.com / 555.777.8888 Emergency line: 911-555-0123555.777.8888, 911-555-0123d.wilson@dept.com, marketing@company.comPlease forward any invoices to billing@finance.com or fax to (777) 555-0147777-555-0147billing@finance.com Trying to extract company names was tougher, since its a lot easier to spot phone number and email address patterns than to know the difference between a company name and a product name.I tested company and product extraction with some recent headlines and summaries from Computerworlds home page, asking simply for companies and products in my formulas. Haikus results:Haiku: Company and product name extractionTextCompaniesProducts10 steps to smarter Google account security Give yourself some added peace of mind by giving your Google account a thorough set of security reinforcements, both on Android and your desktop.GoogleGoogle account, Android, desktopHow ChatGPT works with iOS 18.2 iPhones and Siri Apple Intelligence is about to receive its first important update introducing ChatGPT access.ChatGPT, iOS, Apple, SiriChatGPT, iOS 18.2 iPhones, Siri, Apple IntelligenceOECD: GenAI is affecting jobs previously thought safe from automation Though the technology will likely lead to new jobs, they may not benefit those who lost work due to automation.OECDGenAIMicrosoft moves to stop M365 Copilot from oversharing data The generative AI assistant can surface sensitive information in over-permissioned files, a growing concern for businesses testing the technology. Microsoft is adding new features to SharePoint and Purview to make it easier to control what the tool can access.MicrosoftMicrosoft 365 Copilot, SharePoint, Purview It was a bit disappointing that Haiku tagged ChatGPT, iOS, and Siri as companies. Sonnet did better on that one overall but worse on the last listing, adding two products as companies along with Microsoft:Sonnet: Company and product name extractionTextCompaniesProducts10 steps to smarter Google account security Give yourself some added peace of mind by giving your Google account a thorough set of security reinforcements, both on Android and your desktop.GoogleGoogle accountHow ChatGPT works with iOS 18.2 iPhones and Siri Apple Intelligence is about to receive its first important update introducing ChatGPT access.AppleiOS 18.2, iPhones, Siri, ChatGPTOECD: GenAI is affecting jobs previously thought safe from automation Though the technology will likely lead to new jobs, they may not benefit those who lost work due to automation.OECDGenAIMicrosoft moves to stop M365 Copilot from oversharing data The generative AI assistant can surface sensitive information in over-permissioned files, a growing concern for businesses testing the technology. Microsoft is adding new features to SharePoint and Purview to make it easier to control what the tool can access.Microsoft, SharePoint, PurviewM365 Copilot, SharePoint, Purview When I tried the pricey Opus model, it got rows 2-4 correct but added Android as a company on the first row. My conclusion: I either need to give these models better prompts and more examples for a task like this or tolerate some inaccuracies.However, models continue to improve, and a task thats beyond their capabilities now may work better a few months down the road.For the sake of comparison, I gave all this text to OpenAIs new o1 model in the ChatGPT Plus chatbot and asked it to extract products. Those results were better: o1 correctly identified Google account, Android, ChatGPT, iOS 18.2, iPhones, Siri, M365 Copilot, SharePoint, and Purview as products.And it was the only model to extract just Google, Apple, and Microsoft as companies OECD, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, is not technically a company. When I asked o1 to extract both companies and organizations, it responded: Google (company), Apple (company), OECD (organization), and Microsoft (company).(OpenAI doesnt have its own extension for Google Sheets, although there are some paid third-party applications.)Meanwhile, though, if you can tolerate some imperfect results and less than top-speed performance, you can start doing LLM-based natural language processing right within a spreadsheet. As Ethan Mollick, author of Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI, advised on Bluesky recently:I think firms worrying about AI hallucination should consider some questions:1) How vital is 100% accuracy on a task?2) How accurate is AI?3) How accurate is the human who would do it?4) How do you know 2 & 3?5) How do you deal with the fact that humans are not 100%?Not all tasks are the same.