Claude Duet Is Anthropic's Agent That Messages You First

Anthropic opened a waitlist for Claude Duet, a new app where Claude starts the conversation. It sends you a brief each morning, checks the apps you connect throughout the day, messages you when something needs you, and keeps working on the jobs you hand it after you put your phone down.

Duet is its own app, separate from the main Claude app, on iPhone, Android and claude.ai. Anthropic built it for professionals and small business owners and calls it a research preview, an early version it's still tuning based on what testers tell it, according to its announcement.

It comes with the Pro ($20 a month) and Max (from $100 a month) plans at no extra cost, for people in the US, and for now you can only join the waitlist. Team and Enterprise plans aren't included yet.

Here's Anthropic's launch video:

What a day with Duet looks like

Duet is waitlist-only for now, so here's how it works according to Anthropic's announcement and product page.

First thing, Duet sends you a short brief on the most important items across your connected apps, like Gmail, Slack and QuickBooks.

In Anthropic's launch video, a coffee company owner's brief lists a health permit Duet has already filled out and that's waiting to be paid, a hiring decision, and a $410,000 renewal a customer sent back with edits. It ends with something Duet can do right away: build a sales dashboard from the latest numbers.

After that, it checks your connected accounts every few hours and messages you only when something needs your attention. Anthropic says it checks every few hours on purpose, because checking nonstop would use up your plan's limits much faster.

You can tell it what you want to hear about and how often. You reply by typing or by voice, and everything happens in one ongoing thread, so a quick answer and a weeklong project start in the same place.

When you hand it a job, you describe it in a short message and Duet works out which apps to use and what steps to take.

It runs on its own computer in Anthropic's cloud, with its own browser, so your laptop and phone can be off while it works. You get a notification when the job is done or needs your review.

What Duet does that a regular Claude chat can't

The Claude app waits for you to open a chat, and you work on something alongside it. Duet comes to you with what needs your attention, which is the difference Anthropic draws on Duet's product page.

There's little to set up, because Duet carries over your memory, skills and connected apps from your Claude account. It runs on Claude Opus 5.5, which Anthropic says gives it the judgment to decide what needs you, what can wait and when to check with you first.

Claude could already work in the background, since Claude Cowork keeps going while your laptop is closed, but you're the one who sets up every Cowork task. Duet adds the part where Claude is the one who speaks first, with the morning brief and the check-ins.

The business jobs Anthropic built it for

Duet can use the more than 6,000 connectors and plugins in Claude's marketplace. These are the jobs Anthropic lists:

• Find the Gmail and Slack messages you've missed and help you reply.
• Check QuickBooks or Stripe for unpaid invoices and draft the reminders.
• Prepare and run payroll in Gusto, with hours, bonuses and reimbursements filled in.
• Draft a job post and, once you edit and approve it, post it to LinkedIn.
• Prepare agreements and send them for review and signature through Docusign.
• Draft follow-up emails from the contact and deal history in HubSpot.
• Turn a product launch into a social campaign in Canva.
• Set up, design and manage a Shopify store.

Since everything happens by message, a first job can be as plain as this:

Go through QuickBooks for invoices more than 30 days overdue and draft a polite reminder for each one.

Or, to tune what it messages you about:

Message me only if a customer emails about a refund or a late order, or if a meeting gets moved. Everything else can wait for tomorrow's brief.

People at Anthropic have been using it the same way. The head of Claude Code talks through his to-do list with Duet on walks instead of saving it for his desk.

The head of the team that designs Claude's behavior hands Duet her list before leaving to be with her kids, then reads its report in the evening.

It asks before it sends, pays, signs or deletes

Duet reads, drafts and prepares work on its own. Before it sends a message, makes a payment, signs a document or deletes anything, it shows you exactly what it's about to do and waits for your OK.

Some things are off-limits even if you approve them, like trading securities or moving money between accounts. You can also disconnect any app Duet has access to.

When it buys something for your business, it can pay with Link, Stripe's digital wallet. Duet confirms the item with you, Link asks you to approve the spend, and it pays with a virtual card, so your real card number isn't shared.

It's a lot like the stand-in card number in Amex's safety check for AI agent purchases. Duet can also check out at online stores with Shopify's Shop Pay, and Anthropic says that soon, with your permission, it will sign in to sites using the logins you've saved in 1Password.

Anthropic says Duet never directly sees your passwords or sign-in tokens. A new filter checks each message it sends and is designed to refuse to share credit card numbers or government ID numbers, and it only sends health or personal finance details when you've told it to.

What isn't ready yet, and how it uses your limits

Anthropic says Duet might misread a thread or get wrong what's urgent. It was built for work, so personal errands like booking tickets aren't as strong yet, and it can't show you its browser while it works.

Duet shares your plan's usage limits with the rest of Claude. Its background checks count toward those limits, and bigger jobs like building a financial model or a deck take more work, so they use more.

Where Duet fits next to Dots, Grok Bot and Muse

Duet is Anthropic's answer to OpenAI's Dots, xAI's Grok Bot and Meta's Muse, the assistants that already run errands in the background. Dots needs ChatGPT Pro, which starts at $100 a month, or Business Premium, while Duet comes with Claude's $20 Pro plan.

A cheaper plan still has limits. When I gave Grok Bot, Dots and Muse the same three jobs, Grok Bot ran out of usage in the middle of the second one, and I spent an extra $30 just to get a few of those tasks done. Duet's check-ins every few hours come out of the same pool as your regular Claude chats.

Grok Bot won that test for work, and a big reason was its setup: a team of bots, each with its own job, plus one that coordinates them. Muse felt the most like a personal assistant. Duet is one agent in one ongoing thread, so a quick reply and a weeklong project land in the same conversation.

Here's the video where I put Grok Bot, Dots and Muse through the same three jobs:

Sources

• Anthropic: Introducing Claude Duet
• Anthropic: Claude Duet product page, FAQ and waitlist
• Anthropic: Introducing Claude Duet (launch video)
• Claude on X: launch thread
• Stripe on X: Link and the Stripe MCP inside Claude Duet
• The Verge: Anthropic takes on Muse with Claude Duet, its new AI agent
• Anthropic: Claude pricing
• OpenAI: ChatGPT release notes (Dots)