The Pulse
Anthropic Opens Claude Duet Preview for Background Work
Anthropic opened a US waitlist for Claude Duet, a proactive work agent for Claude Pro and Max subscribers. The agent monitors connected apps and works on tasks in the background, but requires approval before sending messages, making payment
AI.info Team · Written with AI · fact-checked ·
Anthropic wants Claude Duet to notice work that needs attention before a user asks, then stop short of taking consequential action without permission. The company opened a research preview on October 21 for US Claude Pro and Max subscribers, with access through a waitlist. Duet can monitor connected accounts and continue tasks in the background, but it must get approval before sending a message, making a payment, signing a document or deleting anything.
Duet checks in, but not constantly
The agent sends a morning brief about important items across connected apps, then checks those accounts every few hours and messages the user when it judges that something needs attention. Users can also specify what they want to hear about and how often. Anthropic says continuous checks would use up a plan’s limits much faster, so Duet’s monitoring runs on a schedule rather than nonstop.
That work counts against the same usage limits as the rest of Claude. Background checks use part of the allowance, and larger jobs—such as building a financial model or a presentation—can require more model turns and background work. The preview adds no separate Duet plan, but it also does not give subscribers an extra pool of capacity.
Duet is available as a standalone app for iOS and Android and on claude.ai. For now, it remains separate from the main Claude app. It carries over the user’s Claude memory, skills and connected apps, and lets people communicate through one ongoing text or voice thread.
A virtual machine keeps tasks running
Users can hand Duet work ranging from scheduling meetings to building dashboards with dozens of tools, preparing financial or sales forecasts, prototyping and creating web apps. A virtual machine with its own browser lets it keep working after a user steps away or turns off a phone or laptop; it sends a notification when the task finishes or needs review. Users cannot yet see the agent’s browser.
The product is built around Claude Opus 5.5 and can draw on more than 6,000 connectors and plugins in the Claude Marketplace. Anthropic lists possible workflows across Gmail and Slack, QuickBooks and Stripe, Gusto, LinkedIn, DocuSign, HubSpot, Canva and Shopify. Duet can prepare purchases through Stripe’s Link, which asks for approval and uses a virtual card, or use Shopify’s Shop Pay; support for saved 1Password logins is planned, not available at launch.
Approval is the boundary for consequential actions
Anthropic says Duet can read, draft and prepare work on its own, but shows users the proposed action and waits before carrying out the listed high-impact steps. It says securities trading and transfers between accounts remain off-limits, even with approval. Users can disconnect an app at any time.
The company says Duet’s credential handling follows its Claude Managed Agents design, which keeps passwords and sign-in tokens from the agent. Anthropic also describes a separate classifier and safety prompt intended to block requests to share credit-card numbers or government identification; other sensitive information, including health and personal-finance details, may be sent only when the user explicitly instructs Duet to do so. The company says red teams and an external firm tested its security infrastructure, and that Duet is covered by its public bug-bounty program.
Early users are testing the judgment call
Anthropic says the preview may misread a conversation or misjudge what is urgent, and that personal errands such as booking tickets are less developed than work tasks. The company is using feedback from early users to tune when Duet messages them and how the product may eventually work with the main Claude app.
Mya Dalton, a brand strategist, told Anthropic that Duet noticed a client call scheduled just before her flight and offered to move it.
“I didn’t realize that it was right before my flight,” she said. “I love that proactivity.”
Mya Dalton, a brand strategist
For now, access is limited to US Pro and Max subscribers who join the waitlist, and Duet’s background work draws on the same usage limits as their other Claude activity.