Claude Dashboards and Motion: What's New, Access, and Alternatives (2026)
Claude Dashboards turns questions about company data into dashboards that stay current. Claude Motion turns reports and ideas into short animated explainers. Anthropic launched both as betas on October 8, 2026, and moved Claude Docs, Slides, and Design out of beta on the same day.
This guide covers how Claude Dashboards connects to your data, what Claude Motion makes, and which plans include each one. It also covers the limits Anthropic describes and the alternatives worth comparing. Every detail comes from vendor pages read on October 9, 2026.
What Anthropic released on October 8
The announcement has three parts. Its summary line reads: "Claude Dashboards and Claude Motion are now in beta. Docs, Slides, and Design are out of beta and on every Claude plan, including Free."
Anthropic frames the launch around two slow jobs. It says "Asking questions about company data usually means filing a ticket or writing SQL." Ideas that would land better in motion, it adds, often end up as another static slide.
The common thread is that you can see how Claude made each result. In Anthropic's words, "Each chart shows the query behind it, and each animation is built as code you can edit."
The article is dated October 8, 2026, in both its page data and its byline. The Claude Help Center carries a setup guide for each new feature, one for Claude Dashboards and one for Claude Motion.
How Claude Dashboards works
The help guide describes the flow in one line. You connect a data warehouse or another app, ask a question, and "Claude writes the queries and builds the dashboard."
Under the hood, a dashboard is an artifact made from the Dashboards template. The help guide says "Claude writes a SQL query for each chart and runs it against your data source." Every dashboard you create is saved in the Artifacts tab.
Connecting your data
Claude Dashboards works with two kinds of sources:
| Source type | Examples named by Anthropic |
|---|---|
| Data warehouse | Amazon Redshift, BigQuery, ClickHouse, Databricks, Snowflake |
| Other connected apps | Salesforce, for example a dashboard of open opportunities |
Once a source is connected, you ask for a dashboard in any chat. You can also pick Dashboards from the Output menu in the message box, or start from a template in the Artifacts tab.
The help guide gives sample requests such as "Build a dashboard of this quarter's revenue by region." Another asks for weekly signups for the last six months, split by plan.
Checking the numbers
Each chart carries its own audit trail. The announcement says you can "Click any number to see the query behind it, or ask Claude to explain it." Each chart also shows when its data was last refreshed.
The help guide adds a practical tip: "Say what you want to know, not just what to chart." If a query is not counting what you meant, the guide says to tell Claude what to change.
Sharing and handing off
Dashboards start private. To share one, you open it and click Share. The announcement says you can share dashboards with people outside your organization, or with anyone who has the link, if your admin allows it.
When a question needs deeper work, you can hand the dashboard to a BI tool. Anthropic lists Amplitude, Grafana, Hex, Mixpanel, Omni, Perplexity, PostHog, and Sigma. It says Looker, monday.com, and Tableau are "coming soon."
What Claude Motion makes
Claude Motion builds short animations that play like a video. Anthropic's examples include a 30-second explainer of a quarterly report for an all-hands and motion added to a chart in a board deck. Another is a product walkthrough for customer onboarding.
The method matters. The help guide says Claude Motion "doesn't use a video generation model, so it doesn't create realistic footage or people." Instead, Claude writes code that animates your text, charts, shapes, and images.
Because each animation is code, small edits stay small. You can change one word, number, or timing, and the rest stays as it was. When the animation is ready, you export it as an MP4 file.
The help guide's advice on prompts is practical. It says to name who will watch, where it will play, and roughly how long it should be. It also says to "Attach the report, data, or images you want Claude to use, so the animation is built from your own content."
For further editing, Anthropic says you can open the animation in Adobe, Descript, HeyGen, Higgsfield, invideo, Luma AI, or Runway. It says Canva and Captions are coming soon.
Docs, Slides, and Design leave beta
The third part of the launch affects more people. Anthropic says users have made "more than 45 million docs, decks, and designs in Claude" since these surfaces arrived. Docs, Slides, and Design are now out of beta on every plan, including Free.
The announcement lists several changes that came with it:
- Team editing. Your team and Claude can work on the same doc, deck, design, or dashboard.
- Sharing outside the team. Slides, designs, dashboards, and animations can be shared outside the organization if an admin allows it.
- Exports. PowerPoint and PDF downloads match the editor, and decks go straight to Google Slides as editable files.
- Mobile editing. You can change a doc, deck, or design in the Claude mobile app.
- Enterprise controls. Artifacts now support customer-managed encryption keys, and admins choose which artifact templates their organization uses.
Claude Design is also moving. The standalone site at claude.ai/design stays open until December 14, then folds into Claude itself. Our Claude Slides explainer covers the slides surface in more depth.
Who can use Claude Dashboards and Motion
The two new features have different plan rules. The help guides list them as follows:
| Feature | Plans | Default setting |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Dashboards (beta) | Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise | Off by default on Enterprise until an owner turns it on |
| Claude Motion (beta) | Team, Enterprise | On by default on Team, off by default on Enterprise |
| Docs, Slides, Design | All plans, including Free | Turn on by default for Enterprise on October 15 |
On Team and Enterprise plans, owners control both betas in Organization settings, under Artifacts. Enterprise owners can also limit them to specific groups with custom roles.
On price, the features come with the plan. The Claude pricing page lists Pro at $17 per month on the annual plan, or $20 billed monthly. Max starts from $100 per month. A Team standard seat is $20 per seat per month billed annually, or $25 billed monthly.
Both help guides note that usage counts toward your plan's limits. The Motion guide adds that longer or more complex animations use more of your limit than a typical message.
Limits to know before you rely on it
Anthropic is direct about what Claude Dashboards is for. The help guide says dashboards "are made for quick, exploratory questions." When a question needs deeper analysis, it suggests sending the dashboard to another tool.
A few other points come straight from the vendor pages:
- Connect a source first. The help guide says to connect the data you want to ask about before you create a dashboard.
- It is a beta. Both new features carry a beta label, and Enterprise admins must turn them on.
- Motion is not video generation. It animates your own content, so it will not produce filmed footage or realistic people.
- The standalone Design site closes. Chats and comments in standalone Claude Design will not be available after December 14.
The query view is the main safeguard Anthropic describes. Before a dashboard reaches a meeting, open the query behind each headline number and confirm it counts what you meant.
Alternatives worth knowing
Several other tools also build charts from a question. The table compares the options on what each vendor's own pages describe.
| Option | What its pages describe | Where it runs |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Dashboards | Dashboards from a warehouse or connected app, with a SQL query shown per chart | Inside Claude |
| Copilot for Power BI | A report Copilot pane, plus prompts for creating report pages | Inside Power BI |
| Hex | Interactive dashboards and apps built from a prompt | Hex workspace |
| ThoughtSpot Spotter | Answers to business questions, with natural language turned into verifiable tokens | ThoughtSpot |
| Powerdrill Bloom | Charts, reports, and slides from uploaded files or a connected SQL database | Its own workspace |
Copilot for Power BI. Microsoft Learn says the report agent Copilot pane is generally available. The standalone Power BI agent is in preview. Report authors can use Copilot to create report pages and write DAX queries.
Hex. Hex's homepage promotes "interactive dashboards and apps you can build with just a prompt." Hex is also on Anthropic's list of tools that can receive a Claude dashboard, so the two can work in sequence.
ThoughtSpot Spotter. ThoughtSpot says Spotter gives business teams answers "without waiting on dashboards, analysts, or follow-ups." Its search tokens convert natural language into tokens that users can verify.
For a primer on the format itself, see our guide to what a data dashboard is.
Where a file-first workspace fits
Claude Dashboards is built around data in a warehouse or a connected app. A lot of reporting starts earlier, with a spreadsheet export or a PDF that never reached a warehouse.
That is where Powerdrill Bloom starts. Its pricing page lists "Upload Excel, CSV, PDF, and docs" on the Free plan. Its homepage calls it "The AI data analyst that shows its work." It adds that "Every number comes back with the page, the row and the figure behind it."
It also connects to databases. Its data connectors page describes text-to-SQL that delivers "real-time insights from your databases." For a spreadsheet-first route, our guide to building a KPI dashboard from a spreadsheet walks through the steps.
The two approaches can sit side by side. A warehouse dashboard in Claude can track the standing metrics. A file-first analysis can answer the one-off question that arrives as an export.
How to start with Claude Dashboards
Start with a question you already know the answer to. A metric your team reports every week makes errors easy to spot.
Then work through three checks:
- Query check. Open the query behind each chart and confirm the table, filters, and date range.
- Freshness check. Note when each chart was last refreshed, and compare it with your source system.
- Sharing check. Confirm your admin's sharing settings before you send the dashboard outside the team.
If your question starts from an export rather than a warehouse table, you can try Powerdrill Bloom on the same file and compare the results.
Frequently asked questions
What is Claude Dashboards?
Claude Dashboards is a beta feature that turns questions about company data into dashboards. You connect a data warehouse or another app, ask a question, and Claude writes the queries and builds the dashboard. Each chart shows its query and when its data was last refreshed.
How do Claude Dashboards work?
Claude writes a SQL query for each chart and runs it against your connected source, such as BigQuery or Snowflake. You refine the dashboard by asking for changes in the chat. Every dashboard is saved in the Artifacts tab.
Which Claude plans include Claude Dashboards?
The help guide lists Claude Dashboards in beta on Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans. On Enterprise plans, it stays off until an owner turns it on in Organization settings. Usage counts toward your plan's limits.
How do I share a Claude dashboard?
Dashboards start private to you. Open the dashboard and click Share. Anthropic says you can share outside your organization, or with anyone who has the link, if your admin allows it.
What is Claude Motion?
Claude Motion is a beta feature that turns reports, charts, and ideas into short animations you can export as MP4 files. It writes code that animates your own content rather than using a video generation model. It is available on Team and Enterprise plans.
Sources: Anthropic, Build live dashboards and animate explainers with Claude · Claude Help Center, Get started with Claude Dashboards · Claude Help Center, Get started with Claude Motion · Claude pricing · Microsoft Learn, Copilot for Power BI overview · Hex · ThoughtSpot, Spotter. Details and prices read from vendor pages on October 9, 2026.