Claude Duet: what it is and how to get access
2026-10-21 · 4 min read
Claude Duet is a new, standalone app from Anthropic where Claude works as a proactive agent: it watches your connected apps, tells you what needs attention, and does tasks in the background, asking before it acts for you. Access is through a waitlist, limited for now to Pro and Max subscribers in the US, and it runs on your existing Claude plan limits rather than a separate price.
What Anthropic posted
The launch came from the official account. @claudeai called it "a new app where Claude works as a proactive agent," one that comes to you with what needs your attention, keeps working when you step away, and checks with you first. A follow-up post from @claudeai set expectations: it is "an early research preview," and it "can still misjudge what's urgent."
Anthropic's Cat Wu framed it as a response to what users asked for. @_catwu wrote that Duet will "notice work that needs to be done, and then do it before you ask."
The early user reaction worth reading came from @kieranklaassen, who said "Claude Duet dethroned my OpenAI Dot." They still use both. In their view Duet goes deeper and is better at proactive work, while Dot is still ahead at running across many computers and tying them together. That's one person after one afternoon, so weigh it accordingly, but it's the comparison most people will make. We covered the OpenAI side in OpenAI's always-on dots.
What Claude Duet can do
Anthropic's announcement says it is built for professionals and small business owners and runs on Claude Opus 5.5. Here is what it lists:
| Feature | What it does |
|---|---|
| Morning brief | Summarizes the most important items across your connected apps each day |
| Monitoring | Checks your accounts every few hours and messages you only when something needs you |
| Tasks | Scheduling meetings, dashboards, sales or financial forecasts, prototypes, web apps |
| Background work | Runs on its own virtual machine and browser, so your laptop can be closed |
| Shared context | Uses the memory, skills and connected apps already in your Claude account |
| One thread | You talk to it by text or voice in a single ongoing conversation |
Anthropic says it can draw on more than 6,000 connectors and plugins. The ones it names include Gmail, Slack, QuickBooks, Stripe, Gusto, HubSpot, LinkedIn, Canva, Docusign and Shopify. 1Password sign-in is listed as coming soon. Its examples from testers are very ordinary small-business problems: a brief before a client call, a call that clashes with a flight, a property showing booked on the wrong day, invoices piling up across several stores.
The approval rules
If you run a business, read this section closely. Duet drafts and prepares work by itself. Before it sends a message, makes a payment, signs a document or deletes anything, Anthropic says it shows you exactly what it is about to do and waits for your OK. Trading securities and moving money between accounts are blocked even if you approve. It never directly sees your passwords or sign-in tokens, and a separate classifier stops it from sharing things like card numbers or government IDs.
Meta took a similar approach with a second checker model, which we wrote up in Muse's approval layer. For how agent logins work without exposing passwords, see Grok Bot and 1Password.
How to get access
- Make sure you have a Claude Pro or Max plan on a US account. Team and Enterprise are not included yet.
- Join the waitlist at claude.com/product/claude-duet. Anthropic says it will email you when your access is ready.
- Once you are in, use it on the web at claude.ai or in the separate Duet app for iOS and Android.
- Connect only the apps you want it watching. You can disconnect any of them later.
A good first prompt once you are in: "Every morning, tell me which unpaid Stripe invoices are over 14 days old and draft a polite reminder for each. Don't send anything until I approve it."
Keep an eye on usage. Background checks count toward your plan limits, and big jobs like a financial model or a deck use a lot more turns than a quick question.
Our read
The web apps and forecasts make a good demo, but the triage is what we'd actually pay attention to. Most small businesses don't need an AI that builds web apps. They need someone to notice the invoice that slipped or the appointment booked on the wrong day. Anthropic admits Duet can misjudge urgency, so treat the first few weeks as a trial and check its briefs against what you would have caught yourself.
Whether you use Duet or not, the setup work is the same: decide which apps an agent may watch and which actions always need a person to sign off. If you want help mapping that for your shop, our free process audit is a good place to start.