Claude Duet Explained: Features, Availability and How Anthropic’s Proactive AI Agent Works

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly becoming mainstream, and a big chunk of the credit goes to AI assistants. In recent months, AI-powered assistants have moved beyond simple query responses and content generation to handling tasks that would otherwise require users to switch between multiple apps. Anthropic's new app, Claude Duet, takes this approach further by letting the AI assistant work proactively. It also brings users' existing Claude context into a separate workspace, while keeping important actions subject to approval.

What Is Claude Duet?

Claude Duet is a new app developed by Anthropic that turns Claude into a proactive AI agent capable of carrying out tasks across connected apps and services. Anthropic says it can initiate interactions when it identifies something that may need the user's attention, instead of simply waiting for a prompt and responding within a conversation like conventional chatbots.

The app carries over memory, skills, and connected apps from a user's existing Claude account, which, as per the company, reduces the amount of setup required. Claude Duet can also continue working when users step away from their computers or phones. It runs on a virtual machine with its own browser. This allows it to perform tasks in the background without requiring the user's personal device to remain switched on.

Since it is in early research preview, Anthropic is still testing how well it determines which information is important enough to bring to a user's attention.

Claude Duet Availability

Anthropic has opened a waitlist for Claude Duet's research preview. It is initially available for Claude Pro and Max subscribers in the US. Interested users can join the waitlist and receive an email when access becomes available to them.

The app is separate from the main Claude app for now. Anthropic says feedback from early users will help shape how the two experiences work together in the future.

Claude Duet also shares usage limits with the user's existing Claude plan. This means its background checks count towards those limits, and larger tasks can require considerably more model interactions and background work than a typical conversation. These include instances of creating a financial model or presentation deck.

Claude Duet Features and Uses

Claude Duet is designed to work across connected apps, keep track of ongoing tasks, and ask for approval before taking certain consequential actions. Its capabilities include proactive assistance and background tasks. In simple terms, the AI assistant can check connected accounts every few hours and message users when it identifies something that may require attention. Users can also specify what they want to hear about and how frequently they want updates.

Once given a task, Claude Duet can determine which connected apps to use and work through the necessary steps in the background. It can then notify the user when the task is complete or when it needs a decision or review.

Claude Duet supports more than 6,000 connectors and plugins available through the Claude Marketplace. Anthropic says these integrations help it work with a range of services used for communication, accounting, hiring, sales, document management, and online retail.

Apart from this, the AI assistant can help users purchase items for their businesses. It supports Link, Stripe's digital wallet, and can use Shopify's Shop Pay checkout at online stores. Anthropic also plans to add the ability to sign in to websites using credentials saved in 1Password, with the user's permission.

Claude Duet can use Shopify's Shop Pay checkout at online stores
Photo Credit: Anthropic

While it can read information, draft messages, and prepare work independently, Anthropic says Claude Duet does not have unrestricted authority to carry out every action. It presents the proposed action and waits for human approval before tasks like sending a message, making a payment, signing a document, or deleting something.

There are some activities which remain off-limits even if a user approves them. These include trading securities and moving money between accounts.

Anthropic says Claude Duet is still an early version, and it may occasionally misunderstand a conversation or misjudge how urgent a matter is. The company is collecting feedback to improve how it handles notifications and prioritises tasks.