Claude Duet is an Anthropic agent that messages you first

Anthropic put a new kind of Claude into research preview. Claude Duet is an agent that reaches out to you instead of waiting to be opened. Powered by Opus 5.5, it works in its own cloud environment using the apps you connect, and it starts the day with a morning brief that flags what needs your attention, drafts next steps, then stays quiet until something comes up. You can also hand it larger jobs by text or voice, such as scheduling meetings or building a dashboard, and it reports back with finished documents, spreadsheets, or decks. Before anything sensitive, like sending a message or paying a fee, it asks first.

The examples on the launch page show the intended range. A brief surfaces a $410K renewal where the customer wants Net 60 terms, and a permit that needs a $640 fee. A fundraising flow rebuilds a 12-slide deck and assembles a data room to 25 of 26 documents. A revenue dashboard tracks $528K in weekly revenue, $2.1M in cash, and 4,200 subscriptions at 3.1% churn, then proposes a free-shipping-over-$40 test. Memory, skills, and connected apps carry over from the regular Claude app, and Anthropic cites more than 6,000 connectors including Gmail, Slack, Stripe, and QuickBooks.

Access is by waitlist for Pro and Max subscribers in the US only, with Team and Enterprise not yet included. It ships as a standalone app on iOS, Android, and the web.

Why it matters

If you have wanted an assistant that acts between your check-ins rather than only when you prompt it, Duet is Anthropic's first real attempt, and the approval-before-sensitive-actions design is the part to judge before you connect your email and payment tools. For now it is US-only and waitlisted, so most people will be watching how the proactive model behaves before they can try it.