Anthropic launches Claude Duet AI agent in research preview

In short: Anthropic has announced Claude Duet, a new AI agent for professionals and small business owners, and it is launching as a research preview.

What happened

Anthropic says Claude Duet is a new kind of AI helper that can do tasks across the apps you already use. An “AI agent” is software that can take actions for you, more like an assistant than a chatbot (think “do the task” instead of “just answer a question”).

Claude Duet is available as a standalone app on iOS and Android, and it can also be used through Claude on the web. Anthropic says it is built around Claude Opus 5.5.

According to Anthropic, Duet can send a short morning brief with important items from your connected apps. During the day, it can keep watch and message you when something needs attention. Anthropic says you can ask it to handle tasks from scheduling meetings to more complex work like building dashboards that use many tools, creating financial or sales forecasts, and prototyping and building web apps.

Anthropic says Duet can use connected apps, saved “memory” (information it keeps to be more helpful), and a virtual machine with a browser (a separate, controlled computer space, like a clean work desk it can operate in). Before major actions, like sending a payment or deleting something, Duet asks for approval. Anthropic also says it has new safety checks meant to refuse requests for highly sensitive information, such as credit card numbers.

Duet is still early, and Anthropic says it may misread message threads or get urgency wrong. The company also says it is not as strong at personal errands like booking tickets. People who want to try it can join a waitlist, but they must be Pro or Max subscribers in the US.

Why it matters

More companies are building AI tools that do work inside other apps, not just chat. If these tools are reliable, they could save time for busy teams, but they also raise new questions about mistakes and privacy when software can take real actions on your behalf.

Source: The Verge AI