Anthropic has unveiled a new feature called Claude Cowork as part of its effort to expand the AI agent abilities of its Claude chatbot and build on the growing interest around Claude Code. Released as a research preview, the feature is designed to help users handle everyday work tasks in a more natural and accessible way, especially for people who are not programmers. Anthropic says the early release will allow the company to better understand how people use the tool and improve it over time.
Claude Cowork is currently available only through Claude’s macOS app and is limited to subscribers of Anthropic’s highest-tier plan, Claude Max. This plan is aimed at power users and costs between $100 and $200 per month, depending on usage. By starting with a smaller, advanced user base, Anthropic hopes to test Cowork’s strengths and limits before expanding access more widely.
The feature works by allowing users to give Claude permission to access a folder on their computer. Once connected, Claude can read, edit, organize, and create files inside that folder. Anthropic says Cowork can handle tasks such as sorting and renaming downloaded files, creating spreadsheets from screenshots, or producing early drafts of reports based on scattered notes. While Claude is working, it provides updates so users can follow its progress and understand what the AI is doing at each step.
Claude Cowork also supports connections to external tools and services through existing integrations. Users can link Claude to platforms such as Asana, Notion, and PayPal, or connect it to Claude in the Chrome browser to assist with web-based tasks. This setup allows the AI to work across different sources of information without requiring users to repeatedly explain context or manually move data between tools.
Anthropic says one of the main goals of Cowork is to reduce friction in daily work. Users do not need to wait for one task to finish before assigning another and can provide feedback or new instructions while Claude continues working. Tasks can also be queued and handled at the same time, helping users save time and stay focused on higher-level decisions.
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