Anthropic introduces Claude Duet, a proactive AI agent for professionals
Anthropic PBC introduced Claude Duet on Wednesday. It is a new AI assistant for professionals and small business owners. It is available as an early test version. Duet can complete tasks when asked, keep working in the background, and check in with users.
Duet is available as a separate app on the web, iOS, and Android for Pro and Max subscribers.
Anthropic said the new assistant will send users a short report each morning about the most important things across their connected apps. It will also watch messages and bring them to the user's attention only when something needs attention. Duet can handle many office tasks, much like a digital secretary. These tasks include setting up meetings and doing more complex work, such as building dashboards with interactive tools, creating financial or sales forecasts, and designing and building web apps.
Users can talk to Duet by text or voice, just as they would talk to a teammate. They do not need to write special instructions or set anything up. The idea is to use it like a secretary that can access apps, calendars, emails, and other connected information. Because Duet is part of Claude, it keeps the conversation in one ongoing thread. It remembers what users said earlier and returns completed work, such as documents, spreadsheets, or slide presentations, for them to review.
Duet is part of the Claude service that users already use. It can access Claude's memory, skills, and apps, so users do not need to do any extra setup.
Anthropic stressed that Duet is built using the company's framework for trustworthy agents. This framework also guides existing AI agent systems, such as Claude Code and Claude in Chrome. An automatic system checks the agent's planned actions. It looks for messages that might reveal sensitive information and asks the user to confirm before taking important actions.
The company also said that Anthropic employees use Duet themselves. Boris Cherny, who works on Claude Code, uses it while walking to talk through his to-do list and save time at his desk. The team that builds Duet also uses it to develop the product. Karan Ahuja, who leads the team, uses it to schedule user interviews and even release code.
The early test will help Anthropic learn more about how people use Duet and where it can fail. For now, it is an early, experimental version. It may still misunderstand a conversation thread or get the level of urgency wrong. The agent is designed for work, so it will not treat personal tasks, such as booking tickets, as urgent in the same way. It also cannot show users its browser. Anthropic will use feedback from early users to improve how it works.