Anthropic on October 21 opened a research preview of Claude Duet, an app where its AI assistant stops waiting to be asked. Duet watches the apps a user connects, sends a short brief each morning on what needs attention, and keeps working on delegated tasks after the user steps away.
The pitch is a change in direction for chatbots. Instead of a question-and-answer session, the Claude Duet AI agent is built to come to the user first. It is powered by Claude Opus 5.5 and aimed at professionals and small business owners with more to track than they can follow.
What Duet does on its own
Each morning, Duet sends a brief on the most important items across connected apps. Through the day it checks those apps every few hours and messages the user only when something needs attention. Background checks count toward the subscriber’s existing Claude plan limits.
Tasks do not stop when the user closes the app. Duet has a virtual machine with its own browser, so it does not need the user’s laptop or phone to be on. A short message can set it going, and the user gets a notification when the task is complete or needs review. Work carries over in one ongoing thread, by typing or voice, drawing on the memory, skills, and connected apps already in the user’s Claude account.
Anthropic lists more than 6,000 connectors and plugins in the Claude Marketplace, including Gmail and Slack. Its examples show the audience plainly: checking QuickBooks or Stripe for unpaid invoices, running payroll in Gusto, drafting a LinkedIn job post, and sending an agreement through Docusign.
What it will not do without asking
Duet reads, drafts, and prepares work on its own. Before it sends a message, makes a payment, signs a document, or deletes anything, it shows the user exactly what it is about to do and waits for approval. Two things stay off-limits even with approval: trading securities and moving money between accounts. Any connected app can be disconnected at any time.
Purchases run through Stripe’s Link digital wallet or Shopify’s Shop Pay. With Link, Duet confirms the item, Link asks the user to approve the spend, and payment goes through a virtual card so the real card number is not shared.
On credentials, Anthropic says Duet never directly sees passwords or sign-in tokens. A dedicated classifier and safety system prompt check each message and guard against leaks of sensitive information. Requests to share the strictest tier of data, such as credit card numbers and government identification, are rejected. Health or personal finance details pass through only when the user has explicitly instructed Duet to send them.
Where Anthropic admits the limits
The announcement carries its own caveats. Duet may misread a thread or misjudge what is urgent. Personal errands, such as booking tickets, are weaker than work tasks. It cannot yet show the user its browser. Background checks count toward the subscriber’s existing Claude plan limits.
Access is narrow for now. The preview runs on a waitlist for Pro and Max subscribers in the United States, through a standalone app on iOS and Android and on claude.ai. Team and Enterprise plans are not included. Anthropic calls this a research preview.
A crowded race for the proactive agent
Duet arrives in a race that already has two clear frontrunners. OpenAI launched its always-on “dots” agents last month, and Meta’s Muse agent passed 10 million users as AI spending pushed its cash flow negative. Reuters described Duet as Anthropic’s answer to both.
What separates the three is less the feature list than judgment: which inbox thread deserves a ping, which invoice can wait, which draft should never be sent without a human look. What Duet is selling, in effect, is judgment: knowing what deserves a person and what can wait.
That bet also explains why the company is moving carefully. An agent with inbox access, payment ability, and permission to act in the background is a larger trust ask than a chatbot, and the approval gates and credential design read as an attempt to earn that trust in stages.
Anthropic’s own position adds context. Its cloud partners now see it as a rival, according to its leaked IPO filing, which makes Duet more than a side project: a step toward owning the relationship with the professionals it wants to serve.
For now, Duet is a preview with a waitlist, not a product most Claude users can switch on. The question it raises is whether professionals will hand an agent the keys to their inbox and calendar in exchange for a morning brief that tells them where their attention belongs.
