Anthropic / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
The new assistant, powered by Claude Opus 5.5, opens by waitlist to US Pro and Max subscribers as a research preview
Anthropic wants Claude to stop waiting for you to type something.
On October 21, 2026, the company introduced Claude Duet, a proactive AI agent built to work like a personal assistant or “chief of staff.” It is opening through a waitlist, and only for Claude Pro and Max subscribers in the US.
The pitch is simple. Duet watches the apps where your work piles up, picks up tasks on its own, and checks with you before doing anything consequential.
What Claude Duet actually does #
Duet runs on Claude Opus 5.5, the model Anthropic chose to power the new agent. It also pulls in the memory and skills already attached to a user’s existing Claude account.
The agent is designed to monitor apps like email and calendars. From there, it can take on chores such as scheduling and invoicing without being prompted for each step.
Users can keep talking to it continuously by text or voice. Meanwhile, it keeps working independently in the background on whatever is in its queue.
The guardrail is human approval. Duet is built to request sign-off before taking major actions, and Anthropic stresses that oversight is necessary for important decisions involving financial or legal matters.
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Where to get it, and what it costs you #
Duet ships as standalone mobile apps for iOS and Android. It is also accessible through the claude.ai website.
Anthropic is labeling the launch a research preview. Access is limited for now. Pro and Max subscribers in the US can join the waitlist, while Team and Enterprise plans are not yet included.
There is one detail heavy users will want to note. Duet’s background activity counts toward usage limits, just like other Claude features.
From Loop to Duet #
Inside Anthropic, the project went by a different name: Claude Loop. The company switched to Duet with the mobile rollout.
The launch also follows a structural change inside the Claude product. In September 2026, Anthropic folded its earlier “Claude Cowork” functionality into the main chat interface, allowing users to move smoothly between casual conversation and ongoing task management.
Who this is for #
Anthropic is aiming Duet at professionals and small business owners. Scheduling and invoicing are exactly the administrative drag that eats into time better spent on actual work.
What this means #
The broader industry is heading toward always-on assistants. Anthropic is not alone in chasing that idea. OpenAI and Meta are also moving into personal agent technology.
Anthropic’s answer to trust concerns is the approval step for major actions, particularly anything financial or legal. The rollout strategy starts with individual US subscribers, rather than Team and Enterprise customers. Anthropic has not announced a timeline for expansion to those plans.
Background work counting against a subscriber’s allowance creates a natural tension: the more helpful Duet becomes, the faster it burns through plan capacity.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Diego Almada Lopez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our