Anthropic has launched Claude Cowork, a general-purpose AI agent that can manipulate, read, and analyze files on a user’s computer, as well as create new files. The tool is currently available as a “research preview” only to Max subscribers on $100 or $200 per month plans.
The tool, which the company describes as “Claude Code for the rest of your work,” leverages the abilities of Anthropic’s popular Claude Code software development assistant but is designed for non-technical users as opposed to programmers.
Many have pointed out that Claude Code is already more of a general-use agent than a developer-specific tool. It is capable of spinning up apps that perform functions for users across other software. But non-developers have been put off by Claude Code’s name and also the fact that Claude Code needs to be used with a coding-specific interface.
Some of the use cases Anthropic showcased for Claude Cowork include reorganizing downloads, turning receipt screenshots into expense spreadsheets, and producing first drafts from notes across a user’s desktop. Anthropic has described the tool, which can work autonomously, as “less like a back-and-forth and more like leaving messages for a coworker.”
Anthropic reportedly built Cowork in approximately a week and a half, largely using Claude Code itself, according to the head of Claude Code, Boris Cherny.
“This is a general agent that looks well positioned to bring the wildly powerful capabilities of Claude Code to a wider audience,” Simon Willison, a UK-based programmer, wrote of the tool. “I would be very surprised if Gemini and OpenAI don’t follow suit with their own offerings in this category.”
Enterprise AI race
With Cowork, Anthropic is now competing more directly with tools like Microsoft’s Copilot for the enterprise productivity market. The company’s strategy of starting with a developer-focused agent and then making it accessible to everyone else could give it an edge, as Cowork will inherit the already-proven capabilities of Claude Code rather than being built as a consumer assistant from scratch. This approach could make Anthropic—which is already reportedly outpacing rival OpenAI in enterprise adoption—an increasingly attractive option for businesses looking for AI tools that can handle work autonomously.
Like any other AI agent, Claude Cowork comes with security risks, particularly around “prompt injections,” where attackers trick LLMs into changing course by inserting malicious, hidden instructions into webpages, images, links, or any content found on the open web. Anthropic addressed the issue directly in the announcement, warning users about the risks and offering advice such as limiting access to trusted sites when using the Claude in Chrome extension.
The company, however, acknowledged the tool was still vulnerable to these attacks, despite Anthropic’s defenses: “We’ve built sophisticated defenses against prompt injections, but agent safety—that is, the task of securing Claude’s real-world actions—is still an active area of development in the industry…We recommend taking precautions, particularly while you learn how it works.”
The launch has also sparked concern among startup founders about the competitive threat posed by major AI labs bundling agent capabilities into their core products. Cowork’s ability to handle file organization, document generation, and data extraction overlaps with dozens of AI startups that have raised funding to solve these specific problems.
For startups building applications on top of models from major AI companies, the concern about foundational AI labs building a similar functionality as part of their base product is a common one. In response to these concerns, many startups have argued that companies with deep domain expertise or a better user experience for specific workflows may still maintain defensible positions in the market.
