Anthropic wants Claude to do more than answer questions. Its new app, Claude Duet, can work through a user’s backlog, monitor connected accounts, and prepare deliverables without waiting for constant instructions. The research preview targets professionals and small business owners who spend much of their day managing competing priorities.
The idea is to give users an assistant that knows when to surface a problem and when to handle routine work independently. Anthropic describes the approach as a matter of judgment, not simply executing commands. The app runs on Claude Opus 5.5 and is available through iOS, Android, and claude.ai.
Anthropic says Claude Duet is designed to help people reclaim time for work that demands their attention. Access currently requires joining a waitlist. The preview is included with Pro and Max subscriptions, sharing their existing usage limits.
Work that runs unattended
Claude Duet gets its own virtual machine and browser, allowing it to continue working after users leave their devices. Someone could assign a project before stepping away and return to a completed result or a request for approval.
Its assignments extend well beyond sorting an inbox. Claude Duet can schedule meetings, prepare financial forecasts, build dashboards, prototype products, and develop web applications. It can also check connected accounts every few hours and send notifications when something needs attention.
That monitoring schedule matters because constant checks would consume subscription limits more quickly. Users can also specify which developments deserve a notification and how often the assistant should contact them.
Anthropic’s Boris Cherny, who leads the Claude Code team, uses the app to talk through his mental to-do list during walks. Chelsea Larsson, who leads model and product behavior design, hands it her tasks before spending time with her children. Claude Duet then prepares results for an evening report.
Connected to business tools
The app can access more than 6,000 connectors and plugins through the Claude Marketplace. That opens up workflows across communication, finance, recruitment, marketing, and online retail.
Claude Duet can find unanswered Gmail messages, draft replies, and identify unpaid invoices in QuickBooks or Stripe. It can prepare payroll details in Gusto and draft job listings for LinkedIn. Teams can also use it to prepare agreements through DocuSign or develop campaigns in Canva.
Retailers get Shopify management tools, with a richer storefront editor planned for a future release. Anthropic also supports purchases through Stripe’s Link wallet and Shopify’s Shop Pay. Integration with saved 1Password logins is planned.
Users retain final approval
Giving software access to business accounts raises an obvious question about control. Anthropic says Claude Duet must show users its proposed action before sending messages, making payments, signing documents, or deleting data.
Some actions remain prohibited even when a user approves them, including securities trading and transfers between accounts. Users can also disconnect applications whenever they choose.
Anthropic has added safeguards against malicious instructions hidden in online content. A dedicated classifier and system prompt also restrict the disclosure of sensitive information. The system blocks requests to share highly confidential details, such as credit card numbers and government identification. It allows disclosures involving health or personal finances only when users explicitly authorize them.
The company says external penetration testing and adversarial exercises have tested its security infrastructure. Claude Duet also falls under Anthropic’s public bug bounty program.
For now, the research preview will test whether an assistant can reliably distinguish between work it should handle and decisions that still need a human.