Image: Anthropic

Anthropic has opened a research preview of Claude Duet, a separate app where Claude messages you first instead of waiting for a prompt. The company announced it on its blog and on X. It is aimed at professionals and small business owners, and it starts with a waitlist for Pro and Max subscribers in the US.

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.x.com/kt8gAbWuX8

— Claude (@claudeai) October 21, 2026

Most chatbots sit idle until you open them. Duet flips that. Anthropic says it checks your connected email, calendar and other apps every few hours and sends a morning brief of what needs you. It can then do the follow-up work, such as drafting replies, chasing unpaid invoices, preparing payroll for review or building a slide deck or dashboard. It runs on Claude Opus 5.5 with its own browser on a cloud computer, so it keeps working after you close the app.

Anthropic's main safety promise is approval. Before Duet sends a message, makes a payment, signs a document or deletes anything, it shows you what it plans to do and waits. Some actions are blocked even with your OK, including trading securities and moving money between accounts. Reuters reported that Duet can still make purchases through Stripe's Link wallet and Shopify's Shop Pay, which makes that approval step matter.

The "every few hours" detail is the honest part of the pitch. Anthropic says nonstop checking would burn through your plan's limits too fast. Duet shares usage with the rest of your Claude plan, and its background checks count against it. Heavy users may find the always-on helper eats into the chat time they already pay for. Anthropic has not said how much a typical day of Duet uses.

Anthropic is also candid about the gaps. Its help page says you cannot watch or take over its browser. It cannot make calls or send texts. Microsoft 365 is not supported yet, and Slack works with limits. Personal errands like booking tickets are weaker than work tasks. It may misread a thread or misjudge what is urgent, and something can arrive between its checks.

Duet joins a crowded field. CNBC framed it as a challenger to OpenAI's Dots agents and Meta's Muse. Agents with their own cloud computer, memory and approval steps are becoming the standard design. We covered the same pattern in our guide to using Grok Bot. Duet's angle is that it comes to you, with Anthropic deciding what is worth an interruption.

That judgment is the hardest part to prove. A brief that flags the wrong things, or stays quiet on the right one, is worse than no brief. Anthropic says it is still tuning when Duet reaches out, based on tester feedback. No outside reviews of the preview have been published yet.

How to try Claude Duet

Join the waitlist from the Claude Duet page if you are on Pro or Max in the US. Access opens in waves. Start by connecting only the apps you need, like email and calendar, and tell Duet what you want to hear about and how often. Read every draft and approval request before you confirm it, especially anything involving money.