Anthropic has opened a research preview of Claude Duet, a new AI agent that checks connected apps for work needing attention, prepares tasks in the background, and asks for approval before taking consequential actions. The company announced the product on October 21, with access initially limited to US subscribers on Claude Pro and Max plans through a waitlist.
Unlike the regular Claude app, which typically waits for a prompt, Claude Duet is designed to reach out with a morning briefing and send updates when it judges that something needs attention. It can work in a cloud-based computer with its own browser, so tasks can continue when a user's phone or laptop is offline.
What Claude Duet Can Do
Anthropic says Duet can scan connected Gmail and Slack accounts for missed messages, draft replies, identify unpaid invoices in tools such as QuickBooks or Stripe, prepare payroll for review, and help create dashboards, forecasts, prototypes, and web apps. It can also carry over memory, skills, and connected apps from a user's Claude account. Anthropic says its Marketplace offers more than 6,000 connectors and plugins for the agent to work with.
The product fits into Anthropic's wider push toward AI teammates and agents. The company's Claude Tag for Slack is designed to act as a shared AI teammate inside team channels, while Claude in Chrome lets Claude work directly in a browser. Duet's distinction is its proactive, ongoing workflow across connected apps rather than a task tied to one chat or browser session.
Sensitive Actions Still Need Approval
Claude Duet can read information, draft messages, and prepare work independently, but Anthropic says it must show users the proposed action and wait for approval before sending messages, making payments, signing documents, or deleting information. Some actions, including trading securities or moving money between accounts, remain off-limits even with approval.
Anthropic also says Duet's credential handling is designed so the agent does not directly see users' passwords or sign-in tokens. Its safety system is intended to block sharing highly sensitive data, including credit card numbers and government identification, while allowing certain other sensitive information only when the user has explicitly instructed it to send that information.
Availability and Early Limitations
Claude Duet is available as a separate app for iOS and Android and on the web at claude.ai. During the research preview, it shares the user's existing Claude plan usage limits, and background checks count toward those limits. Larger tasks can use more of that allowance than a typical conversation.
Anthropic cautions that Duet may misread a conversation or misjudge what is urgent, and it can miss updates that arrive between checks. The preview is focused on professional work, so personal errands such as booking tickets are less reliable. Team and Enterprise plans are not included in the initial rollout.
For now, Claude Duet is an early test of a more proactive work assistant, not a fully reliable autonomous operator. Access remains limited to eligible US Pro and Max subscribers who join the waitlist, and users retain approval over sensitive actions.
