Anthropic joined the AI personal agent craze this week with the release of Claude Duet in research preview.
However, while all major frontier model makers now offer a personal work agent, enterprises are still far from using these agents or giving their employees access to them.
Duet is a proactive agent app built on Claude Opus 5.5. With the app, Claude completes tasks even when a user walks away; however, the agent checks before working on the user’s behalf.
Anthropic said it built Duet for professionals and small business owners. It is available as a standalone app for iOS and Android, on the web through Claude.ai, and as part of the Pro and Max plans.
With Duet, Anthropic becomes the latest AI vendor to enter the personal agent market. OpenAI introduced its personal agent, Dots, in September, and Google released Gemini Agent on Oct. 8.
All three agent releases followed the instant success of Meta Muse, a personal AI agent from the social media giant that manages tasks such as sending emails, booking travel, shopping and handling daily schedules. Meta is also trying to point Muse toward small business applications.
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A prudent approach
While the Duet release appears a bit late, the vendor is taking a more cautious approach than competitors, said William McKeon-White, an analyst at Forrester Research
“I wouldn't say there's anything super unique about Duet, except the restraint in which it's being introduced,” he said.
Anthropic noted that Duet includes a dedicated classifier and safety-system prompts that guard against leakage of sensitive information. The classifier and prompt reject requests to share sensitive information, such as credit card numbers and government IDs. Users can direct Duet to buy things for their businesses using Stripe's digital wallet. Duet is restricted from users asking it to trade securities or move money among accounts.
“With these new types of agents, frankly that's a better approach,” McKeon-White said. “We're still getting used to agents with this degree of autonomy, and the internet is littered with examples of unintended and rogue behavior.”
Enterprises aren't there yet
Moreover, enterprises aren't yet ready for personal AI agents, said Paul Baier, CEO and analyst at GAI Insights.
“B2B customers aren’t going to be rolling out Duet for months, maybe years, maybe never rolling it out,” Baier said. He added that many enterprises have not even switched on Claude Cowork, the mainly non-proactive agent Anthropic released in January.
“We have no large corporate customers who are excited to use it or plan to use it in the next six months,” Baier said, referring to Duet.
Related:Meta joins enterprise agent race with Muse Wonder, facing a trust gap
Part of the challenge for enterprises is that while allowing their non-technical employees access to AI chats and projects is low risk, using Cowork and Duet becomes more complicated because personal agents can now automate processes that handle confidential information and connect to IT systems.
“Every IT and governance group and security group is saying, "Hey, wait a minute. We need to be more cautious before we let 1000 employees start vibe coding or vibe prototyping apps that use confidential data and can tap into our existing IT systems,’” Baier added. “No company over 1,000 people is clamoring to roll out Dots, Muse or Duet in Q4.”
About the Author
News Writer, AI Business
Esther Shittu has covered AI technologies and industry trends since 2021. As co-host of the Targeting AI podcast, she talks with experts, thought leaders and practitioners exploring critical AI developments. Before AI Business, she wrote for SearchEnterpriseAI, the New York Daily News, Bklyner and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. When she's not diving deep into the world of AI, she spends her time on passion projects and raising her three daughters.