Claude Duet is Anthropic’s new proactive AI agent: a separate app that messages you first with what needs attention, works through tasks in your connected apps in the background, and asks for approval before it sends, pays, signs or deletes anything. It opened as a research preview on 21 October, and for now it is limited to Claude Pro and Max subscribers in the US through a waitlist. Everyone else, including users in India, will have to wait.
Anthropic is pitching Duet mainly for work. It can keep track of a busy inbox, prepare follow-ups and handle longer jobs while you do something else, but it is less suited to personal errands such as booking tickets.
What Claude Duet does differently from the Claude app
The regular Claude app waits for you to ask something. Duet reverses that. Each morning it sends a short brief on the most important items across your email, calendar and other connected apps, and it can start the first steps, such as drafting replies for you to review. Through the day it checks those accounts and messages you only when something needs you, and it follows up on threads that have gone quiet.
You talk to it the way you would message a colleague, typed or as a voice message, in one ongoing thread. You can open separate channels for different topics, and they share the same memory. Anthropic’s examples from testers are telling: Duet noticed a property showing booked on the wrong day, and in another case spotted a client call scheduled right before a flight and offered to move it.
Setup is light if you already use Claude. Duet carries over your memory, skills and connected apps from your Claude account, and it can search your past Claude chats outside projects for context. If you would rather it did not, turn off Search and reference chats in Settings > Memory.
Tasks it can handle in the background
Duet runs on its own virtual machine in the cloud, with its own browser, so it keeps working after you lock your phone or close your laptop. You describe the job in a short message, it decides which apps and steps it needs, and it notifies you when the work is done or needs your review. Bigger results come back as files, such as a research brief, a financial model, a slide deck or a dashboard, and land in a Make tab. A Tasks tab shows what is in progress and what is waiting on you.
Anthropic pitches it for anything from scheduling meetings to sales forecasts, prototypes and simple web apps. The examples it gives include:
- finding Gmail and Slack messages you missed and helping you reply;
- checking QuickBooks or Stripe for unpaid invoices and drafting reminders;
- preparing payroll in Gusto with hours and reimbursements filled in;
- drafting follow-up emails from HubSpot deal history;
- preparing agreements and sending them for signature through Docusign;
- turning a product launch into a social campaign in Canva, or managing a Shopify store.
If you have tried Claude Code Projects, the idea will feel familiar: hand off a job, let it run in the background and come back when it needs you. Duet applies that to office work instead of code.
Which apps Claude Duet can connect to
Duet can use the more than 6,000 connectors and plugins in the Claude Marketplace, including Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Slack, QuickBooks, HubSpot, Docusign and Calendly. You start every connection yourself and can disconnect any app at any time. One detail worth knowing: disconnecting stops future access, but Duet keeps its memory of information from earlier conversations.
For sites without a connector, Duet uses its cloud browser, much like the browser agents in ChatGPT’s Work mode and Gemini’s Auto Browse in Chrome. When a site asks for a password, you type it into a separate form on your device that sends it straight to the browser, so it stays out of the chat. Anthropic says Duet never directly sees your passwords or sign-in tokens.
It can also buy things for your business. With Link, Stripe’s digital wallet, Duet confirms the item, Link asks you to approve the spend, and payment goes through a one-time virtual card, so your real card number is not shared. Shop Pay from Shopify works for checkout at online stores, and Anthropic says 1Password sign-in support is coming.
Approvals, limits and what it refuses to do
Duet reads, drafts and prepares work on its own, but before it sends a message, makes a payment, signs a document or deletes anything, it shows you exactly what it is about to do and waits for approval. If you cannot answer straight away, it finishes the rest of the task and brings the approval back later. When it gives you a number or a summary, it tells you which email, file or spreadsheet it came from.
Some actions are blocked even if you approve them: trading securities, moving money between accounts and accessing someone else’s account. A dedicated classifier also checks each message and refuses to share the most sensitive information, such as credit card numbers and government ID. Health or personal finance details go out only when you have explicitly told Duet to send them.
Prompt injection is a risk for any agent that reads email and the open web: a message or page could contain instructions meant to redirect it. Anthropic says Duet is built to treat that material as information, not commands, but admits the defence is not perfect. Connect only the accounts it needs, and review consequential actions before approving them.
What Claude Duet can’t do yet
- You cannot choose the model. Duet runs on Claude Opus 5.5 and decides how much effort a job needs.
- You cannot watch it work in its browser or take control of it.
- It checks your accounts at set intervals, so something urgent can arrive between checks.
- It cannot see files on your computer or all of your Claude projects, and it can read your work in Claude but not change it.
- It does not make phone calls or send text messages to other people. With approval, it can send email from connected accounts.
- Slack works with some limits, and Microsoft 365 is not supported yet.
- Personal errands such as booking tickets are weaker than work tasks, and it can misread a thread or misjudge what is urgent.
Price, usage limits and how to join the waitlist
During the research preview, Duet is included with Pro and Max at no extra cost. It draws from the same five-hour session and weekly limits as your other Claude use, at the same rate as chats, and its background work counts too, including the morning brief and check-ins. That is why it checks your accounts every few hours instead of constantly, and big jobs such as a financial model or a deck use more. To soften the blow, Anthropic gives each person admitted to the preview one full limit reset, usable until 30 November 2026.
To get in, you need a Pro or Max plan, a Claude account in the US and an invitation:
- Go to the Claude Duet product page and select Join the waitlist.
- Enter your name and the email address on your Claude account.
- Choose your Claude plan and phone type, iPhone or Android, and optionally say what you would hand off first.
- When your invitation arrives, open it on your phone and follow the setup steps, using the Apple or Google account linked to that same email address.
- Open Claude Duet and sign in with your Claude account.
Invitations go out in waves, and access is tied to the email address you gave, so using a different address on your phone or Claude account can stop it from appearing. Team and Enterprise plans are not eligible yet, though Anthropic says they will be later.
Is Claude Duet available in India?
No. The research preview is US only, and Anthropic has not given a date for other countries. Indian Claude subscribers can still use the features Duet builds on, such as connectors, memory and the Docs, Slides and Design tools, inside the regular Claude app.
My take: the approval rules and the hard limits on moving money are the right design for a first version, and the virtual card approach to purchases is smarter than handing an agent your saved card. The real test will be judgement. An agent that messages you too often becomes another notification to ignore, and one that misses the urgent email is worse than none. If you run a small business on Gmail, Stripe and QuickBooks and you already pay for Claude, it is worth joining the waitlist. If most of your work lives in Microsoft 365, wait.
