A customer needs a reply, an invoice is overdue and tomorrow's meeting needs preparation. Each job is manageable. Keeping track of all of them takes time, especially when the information sits in different apps.
Claude Duet is Anthropic's new proactive AI assistant for professionals and small business owners. Announced on 21 October 2026, it checks connected apps, brings you work that needs attention and carries out tasks in the background. You can close the app while it works.
The description accompanying Claude's official launch video puts the idea plainly: it "keeps working after you put your phone down." The practical questions are what it can do with that time, when it needs permission and how much access you should give it.
What is Claude Duet?
Claude Duet is a separate app built around an ongoing conversation with an agent. You send messages by text or voice, hand over a task and receive a result or a request for a decision. It carries over memory, skills and connected apps from your Claude account.
According to Anthropic's announcement, Duet is built around Claude Opus 5.5 and has a cloud-based virtual machine with its own browser. Your laptop or phone does not need to remain on for work to continue.
Its proactive behaviour starts with a morning brief across your connected apps. During the day, it checks those accounts and decides whether something deserves another message. You can tell it what you want to hear about and how often.
There is a timing limit worth understanding: Anthropic says connected-account checks happen every few hours. An always-running agent is not the same as continuous monitoring of every incoming message. Keep another alerting path for anything that cannot wait.
How it differs from a normal Claude conversation
In a normal Claude chat, you open the app and bring it something to work on. Duet can initiate the conversation when it finds something that needs you, and it can continue a task after you leave.
For example, you could ask it to prepare for tomorrow's client meeting using connected messages and calendar information. It can work through the task and notify you when the result is ready or a decision is needed. Anthropic describes an early tester whose Duet prepared a client-call brief and noticed that the call fell just before a flight.
That is a vendor-reported example, rather than an independent reliability test. It illustrates the intended workflow: the agent combines context from connected accounts, prepares something useful and gives the person a chance to act.
What Claude Duet can do for a business
Anthropic says Duet can use more than 6,000 connectors and plugins in the Claude Marketplace. That figure describes the available ecosystem; the apps you connect and the access you grant determine what it can use for your work.
The launch announcement describes several business workflows:
| Workflow | Work Duet can help with | What to check yourself |
|---|---|---|
| Unpaid invoices | Find unpaid invoices in QuickBooks or Stripe and draft reminders | Whether the invoice is still outstanding, the recipient and the wording |
| Sales follow-up | Draft emails using contact and deal history in HubSpot | Commitments, pricing and who receives the message |
| Payroll | Prepare and run payroll through Gusto, including hours and reimbursements | Employee details, amounts and authorisation before proceeding |
| Contracts | Prepare agreements and send them for review and signature through Docusign | Terms, recipients and the appropriate legal review |
| Reporting | Build dashboards or financial and sales forecasts | Source data, calculations and assumptions |
These are documented capabilities, not results we have independently tested. Availability in the marketplace also does not establish that a particular workflow will work with your account configuration.
Start with preparation work whose output you can inspect. A draft invoice reminder is easier to verify than a broad instruction to manage all customer accounts. You can check whether the agent used the right records before expanding its responsibility.
When Claude Duet asks for approval
The launch announcement says Duet can read, draft and prepare work on its own, while actions such as sending messages, making payments, signing documents and deleting information require approval.
Anthropic's more detailed safety documentation describes how that boundary works. For actions requiring approval, Duet presents the action, destination and content, including recipients, before proceeding. A separate automated check assesses whether the action matches your intent.
Some actions remain prohibited even if you approve them, including trading securities and moving money between bank accounts. Other steps, including payments and account creation, cannot be covered by a blanket "don't ask me again" rule.
For supported purchases through Stripe's Link wallet, you review and approve the purchase in Link. Anthropic says the payment uses a one-time card limited to the merchant and amount, keeping your real card number out of the agent's view.
Approval still needs attention. Check the actual recipient and amount rather than assuming that a prepared action is correct. If you routinely approve without reading, the approval step provides little practical protection against an incorrect decision.
Connected apps and privacy need a separate check
Duet's connected apps carry over from Claude. Switching an app off in one place switches it off in both, according to Anthropic. Review those connections before giving Duet a business task, particularly if the account already contains personal information.
Disconnecting an app stops new access. It does not remove information Duet has already learned from it; Anthropic says that remains until you reset its memory. Treat access removal and memory reset as separate steps.
The company also describes a separate classifier that checks outgoing messages for sensitive information. Its protections distinguish information that should never be shared, such as credentials and full account numbers, from private information that requires explicit consent. Anthropic acknowledges that these safeguards can miss something or flag a harmless message.
For a business pilot, connect only accounts you are authorised to use and choose work that does not require broad access to sensitive records. Product safeguards do not replace your organisation's rules for handling customer or employee data.
Who can access Claude Duet?
The research preview is available by waitlist to Claude Pro and Max subscribers in the US. Anthropic's product FAQ says Team and Enterprise plans are not included yet.
Duet has standalone apps for iOS and Android, with web access through claude.ai. During the preview, it is included in eligible subscriptions and shares their usage limits with the rest of Claude.
Background checks count towards those limits. Larger jobs, such as a financial model or presentation, consume additional model turns and background work. Included access therefore does not mean unlimited background execution.
Use the official product page to check eligibility and join the waitlist. Preview access and terms may change.
How to try it without handing over too much
Anthropic warns that Duet can misread a thread, misjudge urgency or miss something between checks. The launch announcement also says personal errands are less developed than work tasks and that Duet cannot yet show you its browser.
Choose one bounded workflow for an initial trial. For example, ask for a daily summary of unpaid invoices and draft reminders, while keeping sending and payment decisions with you. Compare the summary against the original records and note omissions as well as incorrect additions.
Record how much checking the output requires and whether background usage leaves enough capacity for your other Claude work. Expand the task only when you can explain which work it handles reliably and which decisions still need you.
For a team, give the workflow a named owner so colleagues know who checks the result and handles mistakes. Our guide to implementing AI in an organisation covers that role and access setup. If invoice follow-up is not your main bottleneck, sales follow-up with AI employees offers another concrete workflow to evaluate.
Image credits
Product-demo screens and approval-flow diagram: Anthropic. Opening conceptual illustration: KyoubeAI, created with AI.