On October 21, Anthropic released a waitlisted research preview of Claude Duet.
The proactive AI agent makes purchases on behalf of a user but won’t share credit card numbers or government IDs.
US Pro and Max subscribers get it first.
Stripe’s Link wallet asks users to approve each spend
Claude Duet shops online using Link, a digital wallet from Stripe, and checks out using Shop Pay from Shopify. Per Anthropic’s announcement, it confirms the item, Link asks the user to approve the spend, and a virtual card pays so the real card number isn’t shared.
For business owners, the agent can look through Stripe for unpaid invoices and draft reminders. Some things are off-limits even if the user allows it, like trading stocks or moving money from one account to another.
Every message Duet sends goes through a safety filter first, so private information doesn’t slip out by accident.
That filter won’t hand over private details, such as card numbers or ID numbers, regardless of who asks. Medical or financial information can be shared with others, but only when the user has clearly asked Duet to do so.
When Duet logs in to a website, it never sees the user’s password. This is similar to the way Anthropic’s business agents work.
If Duet wants to send a message, pay for something, sign a document or delete anything, it first tells the user what it’s about to do and waits until they say yes. Anthropic had its own testers and an outside security company try to hack it, and anyone who finds a flaw can report it through the company’s bug bounty.
We’re opening a research preview of Claude Duet, a new app where Claude works as a proactive agent.
It comes to you with what needs your attention, completes tasks you ask of it, keeps working when you step away, and checks with you before it acts on your behalf. pic.twitter.com/kt8gAbWuX8
— Claude (@claudeai) October 21, 2026
Duet runs on Opus 5.5 and comes as a phone app
Claude Duet inverts the typical chatbot formula. It checks email and calendar every few hours and only sends a message to the user when something needs attention.
Every morning it sends a short brief on the top items across connected apps.
The app is powered by Claude Opus 5.5, on Android, iOS and claude.ai. It transplants memory, skills and connectors from a user’s Claude account.
Anthropic has marketed it to professionals and small business owners “with more on their plates than they can track.”
Claude Duet runs on its own cloud computer with built in browser so it doesn’t require the user’s laptop or phone to be on.
Larger jobs, such as a slide deck or financial model, return as files in a Make tab. A task can only be marked as done by the user.
Meta’s Muse already pays through Stripe’s Link checkout with one-time card numbers, Cryptopolitan reported, while OpenAI shipped its own proactive agent, Dots, a few weeks earlier.
Claroc researchers discovered over 6,800 publicly accessible links to shared Muse chats. Some leaked financial reports.
On October 20, Meta announced it would suspend sharing.
There is no charge for using Claude Duet, but its background checks do count against the plan’s usage limits. It’s not yet available on Team or Enterprise plans, but Anthropic plans to add them.
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