Claude Cowork is now available on web and mobile platforms.

      TL;DR: Anthropic has launched Claude Cowork, its general knowledge work agent, on web and mobile platforms, starting with a beta release for Max subscribers. A new feature called Dispatch maintains a continuous thread for task management, enabling work to proceed even if the laptop is closed. Usage data reveals that business-process and content tasks are more prevalent than coding, which represents only 8.7% of sessions.

      Anthropic has made Claude Cowork, its general knowledge work agent akin to Claude Code, available on web and mobile. Initially introduced as a desktop app in January, it is now being released in beta to Max subscribers starting Tuesday.

      The focus is on seamless use across devices. Users can start a task on their desktop, receive updates on their mobile, and access the completed output later, even when the laptop is closed.

      Using a feature known as Dispatch, each request is funneled through a single persistent thread to the appropriate engine. Development tasks are handled by Claude Code, while knowledge tasks are managed by Cowork, with Claude providing the final output instead of updating on each step.

      The positioning emphasizes Cowork as more of a support colleague for administrative tasks rather than a coding tool, as it operates in the background and notifies users only when decisions are needed. According to Anthropic, the agent takes care of the “work around the work.”

      The evolution shifts the focus from chatbots to the platforms where actual work occurs. OpenAI is similarly transitioning Codex into a broader enterprise work solution for non-developers.

      Both companies believe that success will depend more on controlling the environments where tasks are executed rather than just offering the best chatbot. Startups are also entering this space, like Viktor, which raised $75 million to integrate an AI coworker into Slack and Teams.

      Anthropic has been expanding Claude's reach within office software for several months, including its integration into Microsoft Word and large enterprise uses, such as KPMG utilizing Claude for 276,000 employees. Google is also advancing in this area with its Gemini Spark assistant.

      User data from Anthropic challenges the coding-first perception. In a sample of 1.2 million anonymized sessions from over 600,000 organizations during the last two weeks of May, business process tasks constituted the largest segment at 33.4%, involving activities like spreadsheet reconciliation and report creation, common within finance, HR, and administration. Content creation and copywriting were next at 16.4%, while software development made up just 8.7%.

      The company presents this data as evidence that daily business tasks, rather than coding, are the primary areas where AI is making a significant impact. The desktop application remains the preferred platform for extensive tasks with access to local files and browsers, whereas web and mobile versions provide entry to users who may not have installed the app.

      However, offering mobile access to a desktop agent poses risks, as an incorrect instruction or phishing attempt could result in difficult-to-reverse actions on the device. Anthropic advises users to connect these agents only if they trust all applications involved, a cautionary note that is important as autonomous assistants become more common in the workspace.