Anthropic launches proactive agent Claude Duet

Anthropic launches proactive agent Claude Duet: can proactively remind and execute tasks

Phoenix Tech Download the app for exclusive early access October 22, 2026 06:43:20 From Beijing Updated October 22, 2026 09:01:10

Claude Duet

Phoenix Tech News, October 22 (Beijing Time) — AI giant Anthropic announced on Wednesday the launch of its AI agent Claude Duet, to compete with Meta's Muse and OpenAI's Dots. Like Dots and Muse, Claude Duet is a proactive agent that can "reach out to you before you ask."

OpenAI launched the always-on Dots agent last month, which can continuously advance user-set goals through apps such as Slack and Microsoft Teams. Meanwhile, Meta's Muse agent has reached millions of downloads, sparking investor interest in autonomous AI services.

Anthropic said Duet is designed for professionals and small business owners who have too many matters to track, as these people are most likely to find it useful.

Built on the Opus 5.5 model, Duet can connect to users' applications and proactively flag matters that need attention. It can execute tasks and can run in the cloud without needing access to the user's local computer. Like Muse and Dots, Duet is equipped with a virtual machine with its own browser for completing various tasks.

Anthropic officially announces Claude Duet

It integrates memory, skills, and connected apps from the Claude account, so almost no setup is required. Interactions take place in one continuous thread rather than being scattered across different conversations.

Every morning, Duet summarizes important items from connected apps and sends users a brief digest, then checks those apps every few hours and sends a reminder when it finds something that needs attention.

Duet can handle simple administrative matters as well as more complex tasks such as building web apps.

Duet integrates more than 6,000 connectors from Claude Marketplace, including Gmail and Slack, and can make purchase payments through Stripe's Link digital wallet and Shopify's Shop Pay.

Anthropic particularly emphasized safety. The company noted that Duet embodies years of its research in agent safety and safeguards. It does not directly touch users' passwords, new classifiers prevent sensitive information leaks, and important decisions always remain in users' hands.

Anthropic said that although the agent can work autonomously, it will still seek user approval before sensitive operations such as sending messages, making payments, signing documents, or deleting files. Even with account access, Duet cannot view users' passwords or login credentials. In addition, it is equipped with dedicated classifiers and safety system prompts to check every message and prevent sensitive information leaks.

At the same time, Anthropic also acknowledged some shortcomings of Duet, saying the agent may misjudge the urgency of tasks and still performs less than ideally on personal matters such as booking tickets.

Duet is a standalone product currently in research preview, and users need to apply for access through a waitlist. The product is available only to Pro and Max subscribers in the United States, via the web or the standalone Duet iOS app. Duet uses users' existing Claude plan limits, and its background checks also count toward those limits. (Author/Xiao Yu)

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