Claude Duet: Anthropic's proactive agent that comes to you

Every Claude you have used so far has one thing in common: it waits. You open the app, you type a question or hand over a task, and only then does Claude start working. Even Cowork, scheduled tasks and Dispatch, which already take a lot of work off your hands, start from something you set up yourself.

Claude Duet turns that around. Anthropic announced it on October 21, 2026 as a research preview: a separate app in which Claude works as a proactive agent. Duet comes to you with what needs your attention, completes the tasks you give it, and keeps going after you close the app. It is Anthropic's answer to Meta's Muse and OpenAI's Dots, and the clearest step yet from chat assistant to an assistant that actually works alongside you. Hence the name: a duet, not a solo.

What Claude Duet does

A morning brief. Every morning Duet sends you a short summary of what matters across your connected apps: the email that needs an answer today, the meeting that moved, the invoice that is overdue, the document a colleague is waiting on. Not a list of everything that happened, but a selection of what deserves your attention.

It keeps an eye on things during the day. After the brief, Duet checks your connected apps every few hours. If nothing needs you, it stays quiet. If something does, such as an urgent message from a client or a deadline that is about to slip, you get an alert.

It does the work, not just the signalling. You can hand Duet tasks the way you would in a normal Claude conversation: draft a reply, prepare a meeting, pull figures together, update a document. The difference is that Duet runs on its own computer in the cloud. Close the app, put your phone away, and the work simply continues. When you check back, the result is waiting.

It asks before anything consequential happens. Duet always asks for your approval before it sends a message, makes a payment, signs a document or deletes a file. It may prepare, draft and queue everything, but the final click is yours.

It already knows you. Duet uses the same memories, skills and connectors as your regular Claude. If you have already connected Gmail, your calendar, Google Drive or Slack, and built skills for how you work, Duet starts with all of that from day one. You do not have to set anything up twice.

How Duet differs from what you already use

If you work with Claude Cowork, you may wonder what Duet adds. The short answer: who takes the initiative.

Chat and Cowork are reactive. You start a task, Claude carries it out. Excellent for work you know needs to be done.

Scheduled tasks are routines you define yourself: every Monday at 9:00 a report, every Friday a summary. Duet does not need a fixed instruction: it decides for itself what is worth bringing to you.

Dispatch lets you hand over tasks from your phone to Claude on your computer. Duet does not need your computer at all, because it has its own in the cloud.

Put simply: with Cowork you delegate work, with Duet you get a colleague who also notices what needs doing.

How to get access

Duet is a research preview and access is limited for now:

1. You need a Claude Pro or Max subscription. Duet is not yet available on Free, Team or Enterprise.

2. You need to be in the United States. At launch Duet is US-only. Anthropic has not yet announced when other countries will follow.

3. Join the waitlist. You sign up with the email address of your Claude account. Invitations go out in waves, so there is no single date on which everyone gets in.

4. Install the app. Once you are in, you use Duet through the Duet app on iPhone or Android, or via the web on claude.ai.

What does Claude Duet cost?

During the research preview Duet costs nothing extra. It is included in Claude Pro and Max and runs on the usage limits of your plan. Keep in mind that the background checks Duet performs during the day also count towards those limits.

For reference, the plan prices that give you access:

Claude Pro: $20 per month with monthly billing, or $200 per year paid up front (about $17 per month).

Claude Max 5x: $100 per month, with five times the usage of Pro.

Claude Max 20x: $200 per month, with twenty times the usage of Pro.

Our advice: if you only want to try Duet, Pro is enough. If you plan to let Duet monitor many apps and take on a lot of tasks, the background checks will eat into your usage, and Max is the more comfortable choice. Anthropic has not said what Duet will cost once the preview ends.

What you can do with it

The real value of Duet is in the small things that normally slip through the cracks. A few examples of how professionals and business owners can use it:

Inbox and follow-up. Duet spots the email from a client who has been waiting three days for an answer, drafts a reply in your tone of voice and puts it ready for you. One tap to approve and it is sent.

Meeting preparation. Before your 2 p.m. meeting you get a short brief: who is attending, what you last discussed, which documents are relevant and which open points are still on the table.

Finance and admin. An overdue invoice, a subscription about to renew, a quote that has not been answered: Duet signals it and prepares the next step, but it never pays anything without your approval.

Projects and deadlines. Duet notices that a deliverable in your project tool is due tomorrow while the underlying document has not been touched in a week, and warns you in time.

Research in the background. Ask Duet in the morning to dig into a competitor, a market or a supplier. It keeps working in the cloud while you are in meetings, and the summary is ready when you are.

Safety and control

An agent that acts on its own initiative raises fair questions. Anthropic has built in several safeguards: the approval step before sending, paying, signing or deleting; a dedicated classifier and a safety system prompt that guard Duet's behaviour; and Duet only works with the connectors you have enabled yourself. Anthropic has said it will share more details about Duet's safety design in the coming days.

Our practical advice: start small. Connect two or three apps you use daily, watch for a week what Duet brings to you, and only then expand. That way you learn how Duet thinks before you hand it more responsibility.

Our take

Claude Duet is the most interesting release from Anthropic this year for anyone who uses Claude as a working partner rather than a search engine. The combination of proactive monitoring, a cloud computer that keeps working, and the memories, skills and connectors you have already built makes it more than a notification app. At the same time it is a research preview: US-only, behind a waitlist, and still in development. Outside the US, the best preparation is to get your skills and connectors in order now in Claude Cowork. Everything you build there carries over to Duet directly once it becomes available to you.