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Anthropic wants to expand Claude’s AI agent capabilities and capitalize on the growing hype around Claude Code — and it’s doing so with a brand new feature released Monday, dubbed “Claude Cowork.”
“Teamwork can handle many of the same tasks that CloudCode can, but more easily for non-programming tasks,” Anthropic wrote in an article. Blog post. The company is releasing it as a “research preview” so the team can learn more about how people use it and continue building accordingly. So far, Cowork is only available via Claude’s macOS app, and only to subscribers to Anthropic’s power user tier, Claude Max, which costs $100-$200 per month depending on usage.
Here’s how Claude Cowork works: The user gives Claude access to a folder on their computer, allowing the chatbot to read, edit, or create files. (Examples given by Anthropic include the ability to “reorganize your downloads by sorting and renaming each file, create a new spreadsheet with a list of expenses from a stack of screenshots, or produce a rough draft of a report from your scattered notes.”) Claude will provide regular updates on what he’s working on, and users can also use Existing connectors To link it to external information (such as Asana, Notion, PayPal, and other supported partners) or to link it to Claude in Chrome for browser-related tasks.
“You don’t need to keep manually providing context or converting Claude’s output to the correct format,” Anthropic wrote. “And you don’t have to wait for Claude to finish before offering more ideas or feedback: you can queue up tasks and let Claude work on them in parallel. It feels less like back-and-forth and more like leaving messages for a co-worker.”
The new feature is part of Anthropic’s (and its competitors’) attempt to provide AI agents that are actually more useful, both for consumers and enterprises. AI agents have come a long way since their humble beginnings as useful tools mostly in theory, but there’s still a lot of development needed before you see your non-tech friends using them to complete everyday tasks.
Anthropic “Skills for Claude” Announced in Octoberwas a partial precursor to Cowork. Starting in October, Claude can enhance custom tasks and functions, with “folders that include instructions, scripts, and resources that Claude can load as needed to make it smarter at specific work tasks — from working with Excel (to) following your organization’s brand guidelines,” according to a release at the time. People can also build their own skills for Claude regarding their jobs and the specific tasks they need to complete.
As part of the announcement, Anthropic warned of the potential risks of using Cowork and other AI tools, namely the fact that if instructions aren’t clear, Claude has the ability to delete local files and take other “destructive actions” — and that with instant injection attacks, there are a host of potential safety concerns. Injection attacks often involve bad actors hiding malicious script in the website the form points to, which instructs the form to bypass their security measures and do something malicious, such as handing over personal data. “Agent safety—that is, the task of securing Claude’s actions in the real world—remains an active area of development in the industry,” Anthropic wrote.
Claude Max subscribers try out the new feature by clicking “Cowork” in the sidebar of the macOS app. Other users can join waiting list.