Hello fellow keepers of numbers,

This week, we got a few sneaky huge updates to Claude Artifacts. They’re turning into some combination of a dashboard tool, custom web app creator like Lovable or Replit, and automation software. Also, Firm360 and Juno partnered to bring AI tax prep directly into your practice management system.

Plus, stick around for a demo of the new Claude Code Artifacts, where I create a dashboard connected to a data source that I can refresh automatically.

The Latest

Anthropic expanded Artifacts in Claude Code with two updates: the interactive apps and dashboards Claude builds inside a session can now pull live data through connectors, and they support public sharing and multiplayer editing.

The first update lets an artifact call MCP connectors, Anthropic's standard for linking Claude to outside tools, so a dashboard can fetch data and take actions for each viewer on demand rather than showing a static snapshot. Connector support runs on Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans and does not work on publicly shared artifacts.

The second update extends artifacts beyond a private session. Anyone with a published link can now view an artifact, and Team and Enterprise users can edit the same one together.

Why it’s important for us:

This is becoming a big theme of my newsletters. Claude Artifacts and ChatGPT Sites are the most underrated new features to pop up since Claude Cowork itself. I know it seems odd for the main story of the week to be about a tweet, but not enough people are talking about this.

We’re talking about the ability to create small web apps, instantly deploy them, and share them through Claude. We’re talking about replacing every dashboard, Excel tracker, Teams update channel you’ve got right now. We’re talking about replacing the Power BI or Tableau that took weeks to set up and takes your IT team a month to update when you request a change.

All of that can be rebuilt as a Claude Artifact within an hour or two. It’ll probably be better than what you have now. And it can be wired up directly to the underlying data using a connector.

If you share the Claude Artifact with a teammate, the data pulled from the connector comes from their specific account. So they can see different data in the dashboard than you if you two have different permissions. You don’t have to worry about accidentally sharing data someone shouldn’t be able to access.

This is also why I continue to beat the same drum on connectors and MCPs. The most important thing on any software vendor’s roadmap right now is an MCP. Even a well-built API can work if you’re willing to build the connector yourself. If a tool you depend on doesn’t have an MCP or an API, isn’t planning one, or locks it behind a paywall, that’s a vendor I’m not very interested in.

If you’ve not tested Claude Artifacts, go play with them. Even just to test it. Take something small that you already track in a spreadsheet or a dashboard you already have. Using Artifacts really comes down to two things: an idea and a connector with access to the data.

Firm360 launched AutoPrep, a tax prep automation feature built on an integration with Juno that turns the client documents firms already collect into entered, verified data in their tax software.

Preparers select client documents in Firm360, individually or in bulk, and send them to Juno in a single action. Juno extracts data across more than 100 document types, including W-2s, 1099s, K-1s, and Schedules C and E, builds a review-ready workpaper, and pushes verified data into Drake, Lacerte, ProConnect, CCH Axcess, and UltraTax. When a prior-year return is on file, it also builds a checklist of documents still outstanding.

Firm360 says AutoPrep automates roughly 95% of tax prep data entry. Juno checks its own output against the source documents and applies the tax rules the return has to satisfy, flagging source-to-return mismatches for a preparer to resolve rather than only catching typos.

Firm360 CEO Patrick O’Neill said AutoPrep "gives firms hundreds of staff hours back each season, and their preparers start at review, where their judgment actually matters." The feature is coming soon and requires a Firm360 Premium plan and an active Juno account, with early access available through a waitlist.

Why it’s important for us:

Firm360 is one of the more interesting practice management systems to watch right now. They're one of the few who’ve actually shipped an MCP connector. It's mostly centered on the billing and economics side today, but I'm hopeful it grows into the rest of the software. That alone makes them worth following.

Now they're folding in Juno, one of the faster-growing AI tax prep tools. This makes Firm360 a viable and interesting option for a lot of small and mid-sized firms. Juno is compelling on its own, but if you're already on Firm360, this obviously makes it more so.

I'll admit I'm not fully sold on your practice management system nudging you toward one specific tool. It’s possible Firm360 won't stop at Juno, though I don't know the details of the arrangement. The more options we have for this stuff, the better.

This is obviously where practice management systems are heading. The value used to be the feature set they shipped with, but other tools are now doing things a PM system used to own. Even Claude Cowork and ChatGPT can pull all of your data into one place, which was a big reason to have a PM system in the first place. So how much is a basic, out-of-the-box PM system really worth anymore when you can pull a lot of that through connectors in Claude or ChatGPT?

The vendors see it too. That's why they're making moves like this, partnering with AI tax prep tools like Juno, meeting recorders, and everything else that automates the little things a PM system couldn't previously. The ones built to integrate, with real MCPs and APIs, are the ones currently taking the lead. Or at least the ones that are worth a second look.

Overall, I like this update from Firm360. I hope their MCP continues to grow into the other PM system features. I also hope other PM systems ship MCPs and this becomes much more of an industry standard.

Trending News

OpenAI restored projects and conversation history to the ChatGPT desktop app and now syncs Chat and Work history across web, mobile, and desktop: Well, I called this last week. There was outrage over how they failed to incorporate regular chat and projects from the old ChatGPT experience into the new ChatGPT app. They're back now.

Anthropic extended Fable 5 access to all paid plans and kept Claude Code's weekly limits 50% higher for another week: I'm feeling pretty confident that we'll have Fable indefinitely. Especially since they don't want to fall behind GPT-5.6 and others. Plus, there are some rumors that Opus 5 could be announced soon.

Amalgam opened an MCP connector that lets Claude or ChatGPT run reports, update records, and load transactions in your Amalgam account: Amalgam automates reporting and analysis from your G/L. Now it can be connected with Claude and ChatGPT to exponentially improve workflows. This one is really interesting for firms.

Puzzle launched an AI Suite that runs an approval-gated month-end close inside the general ledger, with agents drafting recs and journal entries for review: 2026 is the year of every single accounting tool building an AI close. I do like how Puzzle has built this though, it looks very natural.

Bolt open-sourced Bolt Slides, a framework that lets AI agents build interactive slide decks with live charts, filters, and drill-downs: It's hard to even call these slides. These are interactive presentations. The demo video is pretty cool. This feels way more advanced than Gamma or Claude/ChatGPT in PowerPoint. Not sure how useful this will be for firms unless you're just trying to show off.

Wesley launched an AI bookkeeping platform for accounting firms that cut month-end from weeks to under a day across pilot firms: This is built by the former builder of QBO, so it deserves some attention. But for now, it's just another tool in the growing list of automated bookkeeping vendors.

Xero unveiled new JAX agent features, including real-time auto bank reconciliation, smart document capture, and adaptive collection plans: This is the customary set of announcements that come with an annual conference. Interesting, but TBD on execution. JAX didn't necessarily impress.

Moonshot released Kimi K3, which it calls the largest open model ever, ranking third on real-world tasks behind only Fable 5 and GPT-5.6: I'm skeptical that Kimi K3 is really that close to Fable 5 and GPT-5.6 intelligence. But still, the trend seems to be that other companies are slowly catching up to Anthropic and OpenAI. Because this is a Chinese model, it's off-limits for accounting firms right now. But something to monitor.

Notion added read-only Markdown previews and one-click imports that turn Markdown files into Notion pages: AI loves to work with Markdown (.md) files. Plus, they consume less usage compared to other file types. Notion is now a good editor for .md files. The ChatGPT app can natively edit .md files now, and I suspect that'll be coming soon to Claude as well.

Anthropic launched Ode with Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman, an enterprise AI services firm pairing its models with an applied engineering team: This is the official launch of what Anthropic previously announced. Broken record time... Everyone needs help implementing AI. Who better to help with accounting and finance workflows than accounting firms?

Put It to Work

Claude is really good at copying software tools. And it turns out, you can just ask it to do that in like 2 short paragraphs of a prompt and get a pretty impressive output.

I struggled a bit with the connector and underlying data, but Claude worked through it all on its own. It was pretty impressive to see it test things, troubleshoot, find issues, and troubleshoot more for a combined hour.

Claude Artifact for a financial dashboard - Watch Video

Weekly Random

Some of the smartest people on the planet signed a statement warning that AI could reshape the economy faster than any technology in history.

Whether you’re nervous about AI, skeptical of the hype, or just indifferent, it’s hard to ignore. And I suppose the point is that it’s far more dangerous not to be prepared. If we put a lot of thought and effort into AI economic policy and regulation, and it turns out the impact was overblown, then we’ve only wasted a little bit of time. If we do nothing, and it turns out to be a major economic factor, a lot of people could be negatively affected. There’s already a growing chorus of people who are so anti-AI that it’s creating a very polarizing environment.

A few of the notables from the initial statement: 16 Nobel laureates, OpenAI’s finance chief, Google DeepMind’s chief scientist, and an Anthropic co-founder. It also includes several AI skeptics who’ve spent years arguing the AI hype is overblown and that productivity gains would be modest and slow.

The solution will almost certainly look like some combination of personal tax breaks, business incentives, funding from the government and corporations, among other regulations. So naturally, accounting and finance experts should have a strong say in what this looks like. We may not be the leading experts on economics, but we are the leading experts on tax breaks and business incentives. And by “we” I mean people much smarter than myself.

It’s hard to have hope that people will work together to figure this out, but maybe I’m just an optimist about it. If you want to be part of the group that signed the statement to bring attention to this, here’s the link.