Anthropic launches personal AI agent Claude Duet, which can proactively discover to-dos and execute them in the background

Smart Things reported on October 22 that in the early hours of today, Anthropic launched a brand-new personal AI agent application called Claude Duet, focused on proactively handling work tasks. It can connect to users' email, calendars, banks, and enterprise business systems, proactively identify to-dos without the user issuing instructions, and continuously execute tasks.

Claude Duet is built on the Claude Opus 5.5 model and can invoke more than 6,000 connectors and plugins in the Claude Marketplace to complete work such as financial analysis, recruitment management, customer communication, and payroll processing. Even if the user turns off their computer or phone, Claude Duet can continue running in an independent virtual machine.

Currently, Claude Duet has launched standalone apps for iOS, Android, and the web. The first batch is open to U.S. Pro and Max subscribers for research preview waitlist applications, and it has not yet been made fully available.

The debut of Claude Duet has also sparked discussion in the overseas AI community.

Thibault Sottiaux (online name Tibo), the head of OpenAI's ChatGPT and Codex, jokingly called the "god of resets" by developers, quipped in the comments: "Dot, meet Duet. Duet, meet Dot. You two need to get along."

One netizen said: "Duet has already won. It uses the Opus model, and that says it all." He also called out to Tibo across the internet: "I hope you still have some tricks up your sleeve, especially when it comes to models."

Another netizen posted the classic "Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man" meme, with the caption: "Muse, Dots, Grok, and now Duet."

Another netizen said: "Oh no, I just switched from Claude to Grok Bot today." Another netizen said: "Grok Bot and Dot now have a competitor. I've been waiting for this for a long time."

Back in September, Meta and OpenAI successively launched the personal AI agents Muse and Dots. With Anthropic joining in, this competition around personal AI assistants has gained another participant.

A major feature of Claude Duet is its ability to proactively identify work that needs to be handled before the user asks.

According to a demo video released by Anthropic, Claude Duet proactively sends a work briefing every morning, extracting information from the various connected applications and telling users which important matters there are today and which decisions need to be made as soon as possible. The video showed a day in the life of Nicole, a user who runs a coffee company, using Claude Duet. In the morning, Claude Duet sent Nicole a work briefing listing three things.

Claude Duet not only lists to-dos but also prepares the corresponding handling materials in advance, including permit application documents, recruitment arrangements, and a draft contract counteroffer.

Beyond the work briefing, it also proactively suggested creating a sales dashboard based on the company's latest operating data. Nicole replied, "Go for it!" and Claude Duet said it would extract data from the point-of-sale system, online store, customer relationship management (CRM) system, customer service, payroll system, and bank accounts. Users do not need to open each platform one by one, download data, and then organize it; Claude Duet can invoke the corresponding tools on its own to complete the task.

Claude Duet can also proactively remind Nicole that the Chicago store will open in 26 days, but the health permit has not yet been submitted. It has already drafted the application documents in advance and prompts the user to review and pay.

In addition, Claude Duet will adjust task priorities based on work progress. For example, when the renewal matter in Northfield does not need to be handled immediately for the time being, it will proactively tell the user that this matter can wait until next Monday.

The recruitment scenario further demonstrates how Claude Duet participates in work that lasts several hours.

In the demo, Claude Duet first reports to the user that the interview panel is interviewing three candidates and that relevant records will be organized after the interviews are over.

It then generates a summary based on interviewer feedback, noting that Jenn is the top choice of all interviewers, while also reminding the user that Jenn has received another job offer.

After Nicole confirms that Jenn is also her top choice, she asks Claude Duet to extract the compensation package from the HR folder and draft an offer email. Claude Duet then generates an email draft, attaches Jenn's compensation package PDF, and hands it to the user to confirm and send.

Claude Duet can inherit the memory, skills, and connected applications from a user's existing Claude account, reducing the initial setup cost.

In terms of interaction, Claude Duet supports text and voice input. Users can arrange tasks, check progress, and add new requirements at any time within the same ongoing conversation.

Unlike traditional automation tools that require users to keep their devices online, Claude Duet has its own virtual machine and browser. After the user assigns a task, it can determine on its own which apps to call and which actions to perform, and it keeps running in the background. Even if the user leaves the computer or turns off the phone, the task will not be interrupted. When the task is complete or needs user review, Claude Duet sends a notification.

However, it currently cannot show users its browser operations.

In terms of tool connections, Claude Duet can use more than 6,000 connectors and plugins in the Claude Marketplace to connect to the software services that enterprises use in their daily work.

For example, it can find missed important messages in Gmail and Slack and draft replies; check unpaid invoices through QuickBooks or Stripe and prepare payment reminders; and fill in work hours, bonuses, and reimbursement information in Gusto to prepare payroll.

In recruiting and sales operations, it can also draft job postings and, after user review, publish them to LinkedIn; use customer contact records and deal history in HubSpot to write follow-up emails; prepare agreements through Docusign and send them for signature; and use Canva to turn a product launch plan into a social media marketing campaign.

For merchants running online stores, Claude Duet can also connect to Shopify to help design and manage the store. Anthropic says that a more complete visual editor will be launched in the future, allowing users to preview the design before the store officially goes live.

For payments, Claude Duet supports purchasing the goods an enterprise needs through Stripe's digital wallet Link. After the user confirms the product, Link will request payment authorization again and complete the payment using a virtual card, avoiding providing the merchant with the real bank card number directly.

It also supports online shopping checkout through Shopify's Shop Pay. In the future, Anthropic plans to let Claude Duet, after obtaining user authorization, use login information stored in 1Password to access websites.

Because Claude Duet needs to connect to email, banking, and other enterprise applications, Anthropic specifically emphasized security in its product introduction.

First, regarding account credentials, Claude Duet follows the relevant design of Claude Managed Agents and does not directly touch users' passwords or login tokens.

Second, Claude Duet can autonomously read information, draft documents, and prepare operations, but when it comes to sending messages externally, making payments, signing documents, or deleting content, it must first show the user the operation it is about to perform and wait for confirmation.

Some operations will not be executed even with user approval, such as securities trading or transfers of funds between accounts.

To address the issue of sensitive information leakage, Anthropic has also equipped Claude Duet with new dedicated classifiers and security system prompts to check message content and prevent sensitive information from being sent out.

For the most sensitive levels of information, such as credit card numbers and government-issued identification numbers, the system will refuse related sharing requests. For other sensitive information such as health and personal finances, transmission is allowed only when the user explicitly instructs it to be sent.

Anthropic says that Claude Duet's security infrastructure has undergone penetration testing by internal red teams and external security firms and has been included in a public vulnerability bounty program.

Regarding the proactive notification mechanism, Claude Duet does not continuously monitor all connected accounts.

It currently checks connected apps every few hours, mainly because continuous checking would drain users' plan quotas faster. Users can also set which notifications they want to receive and how often. Both Claude Duet's proactivity and background execution capabilities come with usage costs.

Currently, Claude Duet shares the usage quota of the Pro and Max plans with the main Claude product. Periodic background checks consume quota, while complex tasks such as building financial models and presentations invoke more rounds of model inference and generate higher consumption.

Anthropic also explicitly acknowledges that Claude Duet is still at an early stage and may misunderstand the content of conversations or misjudge the urgency of matters.

Because the current product is mainly designed around work scenarios, its ability to handle personal life matters such as booking tickets is still not mature enough.

This preview is only open to waitlist applications from Pro and Max users in the United States, and users must wait for an official email notification before gaining access. Claude Duet is currently provided as a standalone app and has not yet been integrated into the main Claude app.

With the addition of Claude Duet, the personal AI agent track has another new product.

On September 8, Meta launched Muse, a personal AI agent developed by its Superintelligence Labs; on September 30, OpenAI launched the all-weather personal agent Dots; and on October 22, Anthropic officially announced Claude Duet.

As Meta, OpenAI, and Anthropic enter one after another, competition in personal AI agents is extending to areas such as app connections, continuous execution, proactive judgment, and management of operational permissions. Who can make AI truly reliably handle daily affairs remains to be seen.

This article comes from the WeChat public account "Zhizhixiang" (Zhidx); author: Jiang Yu; editor: Xinyuan; published by 36Kr with authorization.