This week, Anthropic announced Claude for Small Business, a library of connectors and skills for Claude Cowork. Ho-hum, right? Every platform vendor trots out sample solutions like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat. But buried in this otherwise yawn-inducing announcement is a tool that's off-the-charts powerful: /review-contract.
Lina Ochman, Anthropic's head of US SMB and product-led growth GTM, told ZDNET, "Small businesses deserve the same access to AI that any Fortune 500 company gets. Small businesses make up nearly half the US economy and employ close to half the private-sector workforce, and yet historically, they haven't been equipped with the right resources, time, and education to effectively learn and use AI." Translation: AI is no longer just for bigwigs.
To use this feature, you need Claude Cowork in the Claude app, which requires at minimum a $20-per-month Claude Pro account. For this alone, it's worth it. Within the app, select Cowork, then Customize, hit the plus button to browse plugins, grab the small business plugin, type /review-contract, and choose your contract file. Claude crunches away for about five minutes.
I tested it on old contracts - ones I signed and ones I didn't. A window company in Florida? Red-flagged items galore. A national fitness chain? Claude noted "Cancellation is deliberately hard" and all the date juggling. A caregiving company from when my parents were passing? Under stress, you're least likely to evaluate an egregious contract. The companies know this, and Claude's analysis showed how they take advantage. I've worked with many attorneys over the years, and not one multi-thousand-dollar evaluation came close to the value and clarity of this Claude feature.
You can even share the results with the other party, making those red flags painfully clear. It might get you concessions. And it costs as little as $20, part of the Claude Pro tier. Of course, usual hallucination disclaimers apply - Claude could decide your contract is crap because it lacks a mandatory no-brown-M&M clause. But I ran it on a bunch of contracts, and it was spot-on each time.
Also bundled are 31 skills with connectors for apps like QuickBooks, Mailchimp, and PayPal. I tested Mailchimp and QuickBooks, though I'm skittish about giving AI access to mission-critical systems. Mailchimp's connector was super limited - couldn't tell me subscriber counts or growth rates, only create a default mailing needing full reformatting. QuickBooks gave me a "business pulse" summary, but nothing I couldn't get from a normal report. It did uncover a 14-year-old overpayment of $36 to Florida's sales tax - helpful, but not revolutionary. I immediately disconnected both connectors after testing.
Every small business is different, and these prebuilt solutions assume specific workflows. But skills are just text files describing what you want the AI to do, so you can adapt them. Still, /review-contract is the gem: a no-brainer, must-be-included-in-your-toolbox solution. If you ever sign a contract with anyone, use this tool. It's your new asset, no kidding.