What Are Claude Docs and Slides? Anthropic’s Documents and Decks, Explained

Claude Docs and Claude Slides are two beta templates Anthropic added to Claude on September 16, 2026. Docs is a rich-text document that lives in your Claude account. Slides is a presentation you build, edit and present inside Claude, then download as PowerPoint or PDF.

Both arrived the same day as the Claude Cowork merger, which put chat and Cowork into one conversation. This piece walks through what each template does, which plans get it, what it exports, how sharing works, and where each one stops. It closes with how both compare to the Claude add-ins for Word and PowerPoint, which work inside your own Office files.

The short version: treat Claude Docs and Slides as drafting spaces, not a document system. They are on paid plans only, off by default on Enterprise, and not available at all to organizations using customer-managed keys, zero data retention or a HIPAA-ready setup. Docs has no version history yet. On Team and Enterprise, a doc cannot be shared outside your organization. Export the file before it goes to a client or into review.

What Anthropic shipped on September 16

The launch post on Anthropic’s blog puts it in one line: "Claude Docs and Claude Slides are new today, and Claude Design now works inside your conversations too." It describes the flow simply. Ask for a document, and you and Claude write it together. Ask for a presentation, and Claude drafts the slides.

On status, the blog is direct: "All three are in beta on paid plans, and Enterprise admins choose when to turn them on."

Anthropic calls Docs, Slides and Design "templates." They sit inside Claude’s artifacts system, the part of Claude that produces standalone pieces of work you can share. According to the artifacts help article, everything you make saves to an Artifacts tab in the Claude sidebar. You can reach it from any conversation.

That location matters. A doc does not live inside a project. If your team organizes work in Claude Projects, expect docs and decks to collect in the Artifacts tab instead.

What a Claude Doc is

The Get started with Claude Docs article defines a doc as "a rich-text document saved to your Claude account." It can hold headings, tables and other formatting. It can also have more than one tab, which Anthropic compares to sections of a notebook.

You start a doc in one of two ways. Ask for one in any conversation, or pick a Docs template from the gallery in the Artifacts tab.

Once a doc exists, there are three ways to change it:

• Edit directly: type in the doc as you would in any editor.
• Ask Claude: request changes in the conversation.
• Use comments: mention @Claude in a comment to ask for an edit on that passage.

Several people can work in the same doc, and edits appear in real time. Claude can also add charts built from data in your connected apps. Those charts do not refresh on their own. The help article says to ask Claude to pull the latest data when you need it.

For an association communications team, the fit is a first draft that pulls from a conversation: a board meeting readout, a member FAQ, a campaign brief. For an agency, it is a discovery summary or a spec that a project lead and a developer shape together before anything goes to the client.

What Claude Slides does

Anthropic has not published a standalone help article for Slides. As of September 29, 2026, the artifacts article is the main primary source. It describes Slides as "Presentations built from your notes, reports, or the work already in your chat." You can edit any slide directly, present without leaving Claude, and export to PowerPoint or PDF.

The artifacts admin guide for Team and Enterprise adds one detail. It describes Slides as decks members can present, restyle with a design system and export to PowerPoint.

One thing Anthropic does not document is how an exported PowerPoint file is built. We could not confirm whether slide text arrives as editable text boxes or as flattened images. If a deck needs heavy editing in PowerPoint after export, test one first before you plan a workflow around it.

Who can use Claude Docs and Slides

Plan availability depends on the page you read. Four Anthropic pages agree, and one release note does not. We cover the conflict in the next section. Here is what the help articles and pricing page say as of September 29, 2026.

The Docs help article says Claude Docs is "on by default on Pro, Max, and Team plans." On Enterprise it is off until an owner enables it under Organization settings, then Artifacts. The artifacts article says the same for all three templates: "On Enterprise plans, they’re off until an owner turns each one on."

The admin guide confirms that owners switch each template separately in that same settings area. An Enterprise organization can turn on Docs and leave Slides off, or the reverse.

One setting can block both on any plan. The artifacts article says creating artifacts requires the code execution and file creation setting to be on. If a user sees no templates, check that first.

Why one Anthropic page says Claude Docs is on Free

The September 16 entry in the Claude release notes reads: "Artifacts, including Claude Design, Claude Slides, and Claude Docs, are available on every plan, including Free." We checked it again on September 29, and the line had not changed.

Four other Anthropic pages say the templates are paid only:

• The launch blog: “in beta on paid plans.”
• The Docs help article: lists Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise, not Free.
• The artifacts help article: “Templates (Claude Design, Claude Slides, and Claude Docs) are in beta on paid plans only.”
• The pricing page: lists Design, Slides and Docs on the Pro and Max cards. Free lists the ability to create artifacts.

Our reading is that Free accounts can make ordinary artifacts, but not the Docs and Slides templates. The help articles are more specific, and both were updated after the release note. If you let volunteers or part-time staff use free accounts, test what they actually see before you promise them either template.

Getting files out of Claude Docs and Slides

Export is where these templates meet the rest of your work. Each one has a short list.

The Docs list covers most destinations our readers use. Word and Google Docs cover client review. Markdown suits a developer handoff or a CMS that accepts it. PDF works for a board packet.

The help article does not explain how the Google Docs export connects to your Google account. Try it once before a deadline depends on it.

You may also see a 20 MB figure in the artifacts help article. It is not a size limit for a doc or deck. It caps the text data an artifact can store between sessions, for tools like trackers and journals. It does not tell you how long a document can be.

Sharing and review: what Claude Docs cannot do yet

Sharing rules differ by plan. On Pro and Max, you can share a doc with anyone who has the link. On Team and Enterprise, the Docs article says docs cannot be shared outside your organization.

That boundary shapes client work. An agency on a Team plan cannot send a client a live link to a Claude Doc. Send an exported file instead.

Inside a doc, there are two access levels. According to the help article, "Viewers can read the doc." Editors can read, edit, comment on and export it.

Three gaps matter for review work:

• No comment-only role. Anyone who can comment can also edit and export.
• No version history. The article says: “Version history isn’t available yet.”
• No live charts. Charts stay as built until someone asks Claude to update them.

The first two gaps rule Claude Docs out as a review record. A grant narrative or a board policy needs a trail of who changed what. Draft in Claude, then move the file into Word, Google Docs or your document system before review starts.

Phones and Claude Code

On phones, you can ask for a doc or deck in any conversation in the Claude app for iOS or Android, then view it. The Docs article lists the limits: "you can view docs, but you can’t start from a template, edit, or change sharing settings." Editing and sharing need the web or desktop app.

In Claude Code, both templates are documented. The Docs help article says to ask Claude to turn the current session into a spec, runbook or readout. On desktop, the doc opens in the side panel. In the terminal, Claude gives you a link to open it on the web.

The Claude Code artifacts documentation adds two details. Claude Docs reaches Claude Code as a claude.ai connector, listed as claude.ai Claude Docs in /mcp. A document that belongs in the codebase, such as a README, stays a file. For slides, the /slides command with a short brief creates a Claude Slides deck and returns a link. Anthropic says to open it in a desktop browser to edit or present.

That page also lists requirements. The commands need Claude Code v2.1.265 or later, a session signed in to a claude.ai account, and the Anthropic API. Sessions on Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud or Microsoft Foundry cannot publish artifacts. For readers new to the tool, our Claude Code explainer covers the basics.

Organizations that cannot turn Claude Docs on

The Docs help article says Claude Docs "isn’t available yet for organizations that use customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK), zero data retention (ZDR), or a HIPAA-ready configuration." The admin guide says the same for the new artifacts experience as a whole, templates included.

Some health-adjacent nonprofits, associations and university departments run under one of those settings. If yours does, plan on having neither Docs nor Slides for now. Anthropic gives no date for a change.

For organizations that can use Docs, there is a compliance gap. The admin guide says: "events for the doc itself are recorded, but activity inside a doc, like edits and comments, isn’t recorded yet." The Compliance API sees that a doc exists. It does not yet see who edited what inside it. If your records policy needs that detail, keep sensitive drafting out of Claude Docs until the gap closes.

Usage limits for Claude Docs and Slides

The Docs help article is plain on cost: "Claude Docs counts toward your plan’s usage limits, like the rest of your work with Claude." Anthropic has not published a separate allowance for either template.

The practical effect shows up on busy days. A long doc built from several files and connected apps gives Claude more to read and write than a short answer does. On a Pro plan, a morning of drafting can crowd out other work. Our piece on when more tokens help or hurt output explains why bigger inputs are not always better ones.

The Claude Code documentation makes a related point about artifacts in general. It says a styled page is more token-intensive than the same content as terminal text.

Claude Docs and Slides versus Claude for Word and PowerPoint

Anthropic now offers two routes to a document or deck. Docs and Slides live in Claude. The Claude add-ins, which we covered in how Claude works inside Microsoft Office, work inside your open Word or PowerPoint file.

The Claude for PowerPoint documentation says the add-in builds new slides from "your existing client or corporate templates." The Claude for Word documentation says its edits can land as tracked revisions you accept or reject.

For agencies and associations, that points to a split. Use Slides for a first deck from notes or a conversation. Use Claude for PowerPoint when the deck must sit inside a client’s master template. Use Docs for early drafting, and Word with tracked changes once legal, a board or a client starts marking it up.

A sensible first use for an agency or association team

A low-risk way to try both templates is a meeting readout.

Paste your notes into a conversation and ask for a doc. Add a tab for decisions and one for open questions. Invite a colleague as an editor and let them mark it up, using @Claude comments for rewrites.

Next, ask Claude for a short deck from the same conversation for the next staff meeting. Present it from Claude, or export it to PowerPoint if the meeting runs off a shared laptop. If you make a deck for a real client, check the exported file before you rely on it.

Finally, export the doc to Word or Google Docs and file it where your team keeps records. That step covers the missing version history and the sharing limit in one move.

If the trial goes well, write down which work belongs in Claude and which stays in your document system. Staff will ask. For background on how Anthropic’s work agent grew into this, see our explainer on what Claude Cowork was before the merger.

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