# Claude Cowork Hits Mobile: Background Agents Are Here > Source: > Published: 2026-07-08 18:08:32+00:00 Anthropic quietly shipped something bigger than a mobile app on July 7, 2026. Claude Cowork — its agentic work environment — is now available on web, iOS, and Android. But the fact that you can open it on your phone is the least interesting part. What matters is that Cowork tasks now keep running after you close your laptop, Claude notifies your phone when it needs a decision, and [Anthropic’s own usage data](https://venturebeat.com/technology/anthropic-brings-claude-cowork-to-mobile-and-web-as-usage-data-shows-most-users-arent-coding) shows that developers are not actually the ones using it most. ## Background Execution: The Shift That Actually Matters Before this update, Cowork was a desktop app tied to your active session. If you shut your lid, you killed your agent. That made it useful but fragile — the kind of tool that works great during a meeting and falls apart when you leave your desk. That model is gone. Cowork tasks now run on Anthropic’s infrastructure, not your local machine. Close the app, lose WiFi, let your laptop sleep — Claude keeps going. When it hits a decision that requires a human call, it pushes a notification to your phone. You approve from there, and work continues. Scheduled tasks run even when no device is online at all. This is the actual product change. “Available on mobile” is a distribution story. “Tasks run after the laptop closes” is an architecture story — and it changes what Cowork is for. ## The Usage Data Nobody Expected Anthropic published a breakdown from 1.2 million anonymized Cowork sessions sampled between May 11–31, drawn from more than 600,000 organizations. The headline: software development accounts for **8.7%** of sessions. | Category | Share of Sessions | |---|---| | Business process and operations | 33.4% | | Content creation and copywriting | 16.4% | | Software development | 8.7% | | DevOps and infrastructure | 7.0% | | Research and intelligence | 6.4% | | Data analysis and BI | 5.8% | | Document processing | 4.1% | | Sales and revenue operations | 4.0% | More than 90% of what people actually do with Cowork has nothing to do with writing code. Anthropic built Cowork as part of its coding-agent push, but the market voted differently. Ops teams, content writers, and analysts adopted it harder than developers did — which is exactly why the expansion went to mobile and web instead of doubling down on IDE integrations. If you’ve been treating Cowork as a coding tool, you’re using the minority use case. ## What You Get on Mobile and Web (and What You Don’t) Web and mobile users can start, steer, resume, and review tasks; run connectors, skills, plugins, and scheduled tasks; manage projects; and preview files Claude creates. The new **Microsoft 365 write tools** are also available: draft and send email, create and update calendar events, and create or update files in OneDrive and SharePoint. What you don’t get: live artifacts stay desktop-only for now. No local file access, no local browser access on mobile or web. Desktop remains the full-featured experience — mobile is a control plane and approval interface, not a replacement. That’s an honest limitation worth keeping in mind. “Cowork on your phone” doesn’t mean everything Cowork does is now on your phone. ## Microsoft 365 Write Tools: The Enterprise Unlock The M365 integration is available across all Claude plans including Free, but write capabilities — send email, create files, manage calendar — require admin enablement. Claude mirrors each user’s existing M365 permissions. There’s no privilege escalation, and it can’t access anything the user couldn’t already touch directly in M365. See the [M365 connector setup guide](https://support.claude.com/en/articles/12542951-set-up-the-microsoft-365-connector) for the full configuration steps. Current limitations: no attachment support, no posting to Teams, no Teams permissions changes. If your org is on M365 and you’re doing repetitive ops work — scheduling, status-update emails, OneDrive file management — this connector makes Cowork immediately practical without any custom integration work. ## What to Do Now Anthropic extended doubled Cowork usage limits through **August 5, 2026** for Pro, Max, Team, and legacy seat Enterprise users. That’s the window to run bigger, longer tasks before limits reset. The mobile/web beta is rolling out to Max users first, with other paid plans to follow. - Max subscribers: check for the web beta on [claude.ai](https://claude.ai)and the updated mobile app now - Set up the [Microsoft 365 connector](https://support.claude.com/en/articles/12542951-set-up-the-microsoft-365-connector)if your org uses M365 — works on all plans - Review [scheduled tasks](https://support.claude.com/en/articles/13854387-schedule-recurring-tasks-in-claude-cowork)— they now run without your device being online The broader shift Anthropic is signaling: Cowork is moving from a chat session you run to a work agent you manage. The mobile/web expansion is the first infrastructure step toward that. The [official announcement](https://claude.com/blog/cowork-web-mobile) has the full capability breakdown and rollout timeline.