Anthropic opens a research preview of Claude Duet, a proactive assistant app
Anthropic opened a waitlisted research preview of Claude Duet, a standalone app where Claude sends a morning brief, watches connected apps, takes tasks by message and checks with you before acting, starting with US Pro and Max subscribers.
What happened
- On October 21, 2026, Anthropic announced Claude Duet, a new app where Claude works as a proactive agent, built for professionals and small business owners.
- It runs as a standalone app on iOS and Android and on claude.ai, and is built around Claude Opus 5.5.
- Each morning it sends a short brief from your connected apps, checks those accounts every few hours, and messages you when something needs your attention.
- It works on its own virtual machine with a browser, so tasks keep running while your laptop or phone is off, and it is designed to ask before sending messages, making payments, signing documents or deleting anything.
- The preview is included in Pro and Max plans in the US through a waitlist and shares those plans' usage limits; Team and Enterprise plans are not included yet.
Why it matters: It moves a mainstream assistant from waiting for your prompt to coming to you with what needs a decision, which is the kind of help a busy small-business owner can actually use. How well it judges what is urgent, and how much of your plan's limits its background checks use, will decide whether it sticks.
Sources
- Anthropic: Introducing Claude Duet claude.com
- Claude Help Center: Get started with Claude Duet support.claude.com
Checked October 22, 2026 against the sources above. Claims about performance or benchmarks are the company's own unless stated otherwise.