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GPT-5 gets smarter about mental health

PLUS: Anthropic releases Claude for Excel

Author

Barsee
28 Oct

Together with

Howdy, it’s Barsee.

Happy Tuesday, AI family, and welcome to another AI Valley edition. This issue takes 4 minutes to read.

Today’s climb through the Valley reveals:

  • Anthropic releases Claude for Excel

  • GPT-5 gets smarter about mental health

  • AI-driven job cuts accelerate in big tech

  • Plus trending AI tools, posts, and resources

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THROUGH THE VALLEY

Claude is analyzing a spreadsheet

Anthropic has released Claude for Excel in beta, introducing a sidebar that lets users work directly with the AI assistant inside Microsoft Excel. Claude can read, analyze, and modify spreadsheets while explaining every step it takes.

The new integration allows users to fix formulas, populate templates with updated data, or even build entire workbooks from scratch. Each edit is transparent and traceable, so users can see exactly what was changed and why.

Alongside the Excel add-in, Anthropic introduced seven data connectors for the financial industry, providing Claude with real-time and proprietary information sources. These include Aiera for earnings call transcripts, LSEG for live market data, and Moody’s for credit ratings and company insights.

The update also brings new finance-specific Agent Skills designed for analysts and investors, such as generating discounted cash flow models, performing company analysis, and drafting coverage reports.

Claude for Excel and the new Agent Skills are available now as a research preview for Max, Enterprise, and Teams subscribers, with a broader release coming later.

Why does it matter?

AI in spreadsheets has become a major trend, with ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot both competing for dominance. Claude’s approach, however, is different: it combines native Excel access with live financial data, aiming for a level of reliability that many analysts feel has been missing from AI-assisted workflows.

OTHER QUICK HITS

OpenAI has dropped a major GPT-5 update to better handle mental health emergencies after working with more than 170 clinicians worldwide. The new model reduces unsafe replies by a wide margin, scoring 91% compliant with clinical safety standards compared to 77% for GPT-4o. It’s trained to show empathy without reinforcing delusions and holds safeguards steady during long chats. OpenAI estimates about 0.07% of its 800 million weekly users show signs of psychosis or mania. The changes follow rising legal scrutiny and growing pressure to protect vulnerable users.

Amazon will cut about 14,000 corporate jobs, roughly 4% of its white-collar workforce, as it boosts investment in artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure. CEO Andy Jassy said Amazon has over 1,000 AI tools in use or development and is building new data centers in Mississippi, Indiana, Ohio, and North Carolina (each worth around $10 billion). The layoffs follow earlier cuts in 2023 and reflect Jassy’s long-term plan to shift resources from people to technology. Affected employees will receive severance, health coverage, and internal job placement support.

TRENDING TOOLS

  • BrowserOS > An AI-powered browser that turns your words into actions

  • Friday > An AI that calls you for guided self-reflection and mindful check-ins

  • Shortcut > The smartest way to handle Excel and spreadsheet work with AI assistance

  • Solid > Build production-ready web apps with everything included (backend logic, authentication, databases, APIs, dashboards, portfolios, ecommerce, landing pages, and internal tools)

  • Rube by Composio > A universal MCP that lets you take actions across 600+ apps directly from your AI chat

  • Odyssey-2 > A new interactive video model that generates AI footage at 20 frames per second, letting users shape and control multi-minute videos

  • Grokipedia > Elon Musk’s answer to Wikipedia.

THINK PIECES / BRAIN BOOST

THE VALLEY GEMS

What’s trending on social today:

THAT’S ALL FOR TODAY

Thank you for reading today’s edition. That’s all for today’s issue.

💡 Help me get better and suggest new ideas at [email protected] or @heyBarsee

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