In a move marking a shift away from chatbots that communicate with agents who do, Anthropic has officially unveiled Cowork.
Built right into the Claude desktop app for macOS, Cowork is a 'research preview' designed to give non-technical users the same autonomous power previously reserved for software engineers using Claude Code. By granting the AI access to specific local folders, users can now delegate multi-step administrative and creative tasks that Claude performs independently on his computer.
Over the last year, the industry has been buzzing about “agentic artificial intelligence” – systems that can plan and act without constant human hand-holding. With Cowork, Anthropic makes this a consumer reality.
Unlike the standard chat interface where you have to manually upload files and wait for a response, Cowork works as a collaborator in the background.
- Local file access: Users “mount” a specific folder. Claude can then read, edit and create files (Excel, PDF, Word) in this directory.
- Autonomous planning: Instead of simply summarizing the document, you can set a high-level goal. For example, you could point Claude to a folder containing 20 raw interview transcripts and say: “Identify the five most recurring themes in these interviews, prepare a branded slide deck in a new folder summarizing the findings, and create a CSV file with direct quotes for each topic.”
- Parallel Execution: While traditional Claude chats are linear, Cowork can queue and run tasks in parallel, allowing it to handle “long horizon” tasks that may take 30 minutes or longer to complete.
Interestingly, Anthropic revealed that Cowork was born out of user behavior. After the release of Claude Code (the company's CLI-based development tool) in late 2024, Anthropic noticed that users were having trouble using the command line to use the agent for non-coding tasks such as organizing files or analyzing spreadsheets.
However, Anthropic is clear about the risks associated with more autonomous AI behavior. Because Cowork can perform potentially destructive actions such as deleting files, the company emphasizes the importance of clear and unambiguous prompts. Anthropic reiterates the industry-wide challenge of instant injection attacks, especially when agents interact with external content. While safeguards exist, agent security remains an active area of development.
To alleviate these concerns, Cowork operates under strict user-defined permissions: Claude can only access folders and connectors explicitly approved by the user, and requests confirmation before taking significant actions. These controls, combined with the research preview status, reflect Anthropic's careful approach to collecting real-world feedback and usage data.
Looking to the future, Anthropic plans to iterate quickly on Cowork, with potential improvements such as cross-device sync, Windows support, and improved security mechanisms. For now, Cowork represents a strategic step in Anthropic's broader effort to position Claude not only as a conversation assistant, but also as a hands-on, agent-based collaborator for general computing and office work.
The launch of Cowork is a key example of our 2026 forecast: moving from individual use of AI to team orchestration and workflow. As predicted, 2026 will be the year of growth in the number of digital collaborators. We are seeing a shift away from systems that simply execute instructions, towards agents that anticipate needs and autonomously execute workflows.
