Anthropic Launches Research Preview of AI Agent Claude Duet

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On Wednesday local time, Anthropic made a major announcement unveiling its AI agent Claude Duet and released its research preview. The product is expected to directly compete with and challenge OpenAI's Dots and Meta's Muse.

Anthropic said Claude Duet can be used as a standalone app on iOS and Android platforms, and can also be accessed directly on the claude.ai website. In this research preview, Claude Duet is already included in the Pro and Max plans and adopts the same usage limits as other Claude features.

In terms of functionality, Anthropic said Claude Duet is designed specifically for small and medium-sized businesses and professionals. It can send users daily briefings, monitor connected applications, and perform a range of tasks such as building dashboards, scheduling meetings, and producing financial forecasts.

"It proactively pushes matters that need your attention to you, completes the tasks you assign, keeps working even when you step away, and obtains your consent before taking action on your behalf," Anthropic wrote in a blog post.

The launch comes as competing products from Meta and OpenAI begin to gain real traction among users. Meta's Muse—which the company markets as a "personal AI assistant"—launched last month and quickly rose to the top of Apple's App Store. A few weeks later, OpenAI unveiled an "always-on" AI assistant called dots at its annual developer conference.

It is understood that Claude Duet is built on the Opus 5.5 model. It can inherit the memory, skills, and connected apps from a user's Claude account, making setup very simple. Claude Duet is equipped with a virtual machine featuring an independent browser, so the user's laptop or phone does not need to stay powered on. Simply describe the task in a short message, and it will automatically work out in the background which apps to use and which steps to take. The user is notified when the task is complete or when user review is needed.

Previously, Meta mainly promoted its AI assistant to consumers, while OpenAI's product covers both enterprise and consumer markets.

Anthropic said on Wednesday that because Claude Duet is designed primarily for the workplace, it "performs somewhat worse" on personal matters such as buying tickets. The company also cautioned that Claude Duet is still at an early stage, so it "may misread conversations or fail to accurately judge what is urgent."

Anthropic and OpenAI have long been fierce competitors, having spent most of the past year releasing competing models and vying for enterprise market share.

Meanwhile, Meta has been adjusting its AI strategy and investing billions of dollars in new projects to compete in this frontier field. With the rise of personal AI assistants, Meta hopes to seize this momentum to make big strides.

Meta reported its third-quarter earnings after the bell on Wednesday, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts that over the past month and a half, more than 10 million people in the United States and Canada have "set up the Muse personal assistant." Muse's initial success helped Meta's stock price post its best monthly performance since 2022 in September.

(Source: Cailian Press) Body middle Embedded ad