Cowork is Anthropic's agent capability for everyday knowledge work. It shares its roots with Claude Code; the difference is the subject matter. Claude Code is for writing, debugging and shipping code, while Cowork handles documents, spreadsheets, reports and similar daily work.
A Year of Change: From Standalone Workspace to "Just Claude"
- January 2026: opened as a research preview on the macOS desktop app for Max users; in February it reached Windows and added connectors such as Google Drive, Gmail, DocuSign and FactSet, plugins for finance, engineering and HR work, and scheduled tasks.
- July 7, 2026: available on web and mobile, with sessions able to run in the cloud (beta) and sessions and files saved to your Claude account.
- September 16, 2026: Anthropic announced it is bringing everything Cowork does into every conversation. The help center puts it as "Claude Cowork is now just Claude": you simply ask, and Claude decides whether that's a quick answer or a task to carry out. This is rolling out gradually to Pro and Max plans.
So "using Cowork" now mostly means the way Claude carries out multi-step tasks rather than a separate entry point.
How It Differs From Chat
Chat is one question, one answer; Cowork-style work is a task session. You describe the task, Claude plans and breaks complex work into subtasks, runs code and commands in an isolated environment — in parallel when useful — and hands the finished output back in the conversation to preview and download. You can step in and change direction at any point.
Where It's Available
According to the Claude help center:
- Desktop (macOS / Windows): all paid plans.
- Web and mobile: Pro, Max and Team; Enterprise where an admin enables it.
- Chrome side panel: Max and Team, with Pro as it rolls out.
Three things still require the desktop app: reading and writing local files on your computer, browser capabilities, and computer use. On web or mobile alone, it works with files in the cloud session and your connected services.
Permissions and Boundaries
You choose which folders and tools Claude can reach, and it can't touch anything outside that scope; before permanently deleting files it shows a confirmation, and you have to choose "Allow." Cloud sessions run in isolated environments on Anthropic's servers, so tasks continue after you close your computer and you can pick them up on another device.
When we checked in August, Cowork activity was not yet included in audit logs or the compliance API. Regulated industries and teams with strict record-keeping requirements should confirm whether that has changed before buying.
Getting Started
- Sign in to Claude with a paid account; to work with local files, install and update the desktop app.
- Start with a well-scoped task, such as "Organize the 20 contracts in this folder into a table listing the parties, amounts and expiry dates," and grant access to that one folder only.
- Review its plan and intermediate results, and let it continue once you're sure it understood; spot-check a few key figures in the finished output.
- Turn recurring work into scheduled tasks with
/schedule. Per the help center, scheduled tasks run remotely on Anthropic's servers, so your computer doesn't need to stay on.
Where It Pays Off
Recurring work is the best deal: a weekly report assembled from several sources, a pile of contracts turned into a structured table, batches of material generated from a template. Work that is "the same every time and tedious" is its home turf.
Conversely, work that needs subjective judgment, involves sensitive negotiations or demands line-by-line fact-checking only gets a first draft from it. Before letting it operate your computer, see our permissions checklist for how to grant access.
How It Compares
- If the work is writing code or changing repositories: use Claude Code.
- If you want a general-purpose agent that runs whole tasks independently in the cloud: Manus.
- If you're already in OpenAI's ecosystem: look at OpenAI Codex and its desktop app.
Pricing and Access From China
Cowork's capabilities are included in paid Claude subscriptions (Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise) and aren't sold separately. Accessing Claude services from mainland China requires your own network arrangements.