Anthropic's Claude Cowork used to come with a catch: you had to leave your computer on. Hand it a task and the Mac or Windows desktop app would work through it, but only while the machine stayed awake and open. As of July 7, that limit is gone. Cowork now runs on the web and on your phone, and it keeps working in the background even when every one of your devices is offline.
What Cowork actually is
Cowork is the version of Claude you delegate to instead of chat with. You give it access to a set of files, your calendar, email, and connected tools, describe an outcome, and it plans and executes the multi-step work until it is done. Anthropic built it for non-coders after noticing how many people were using its developer tool, Claude Code, to do ordinary office work. More than 90% of Cowork usage is everyday knowledge work, not programming.
What changed this week
Two things. First, reach: Cowork now runs on claude.ai in the browser and inside the iOS and Android apps, not just the desktop app. Second, and more important, sessions now run in the cloud by default. A task keeps going after you close your laptop, and scheduled tasks run even when none of your devices are online. You can start a job at your desk, check on it from your phone, and pick up the finished work anywhere. When Claude reaches a point where it needs your judgment, it sends a notification to your phone so you can steer without sitting in front of the screen.
The rollout is a beta, starting with Max subscribers and reaching other paid plans over the coming weeks. The desktop app remains the fuller version, with direct access to your local files and browser. Anthropic also extended its doubled Cowork usage limits through August 5.
What people actually use it for
Anthropic shared a snapshot from 1.2 million anonymized sessions. About a third was business process and operations: pulling scattered updates into one report, building onboarding checklists, reconciling spreadsheets. Another sixth was producing slide decks, drafting documents, and assembling proposals. The company calls this "the work around the work," the tasks that eat your day without being the actual job.
The change that matters is that Cowork finally runs without you sitting there. Keeping a laptop awake through a long task made it feel more like supervising than delegating. Running in the cloud removes that, so you hand off an outcome and go do something else.
For most knowledge workers, the obvious place to start is the recurring stuff you dread: the weekly metrics deck, the meeting prep, the folder that needs sorting. Set it once, let it run on a schedule, and review what comes back.