Anthropic opens a research preview of Claude Duet, a proactive agent app

On 21 October 2026 Anthropic opened a research preview of Claude Duet, a separate app on iOS, Android and claude.ai in which Claude works as a proactive agent. It is aimed at professionals and small business owners. Duet is built around Claude Opus 5.5, carries over memory, skills and connected apps from the user's Claude account, and is used in one ongoing thread by text or voice.

Each morning it sends a short brief on the most important items in connected apps, checks those accounts every few hours and messages the user when something needs attention. Tasks run in the background on a virtual machine with its own browser, so the user's laptop or phone does not have to be on. Duet can use the more than 6,000 connectors and plugins in the Claude Marketplace, such as Gmail, Slack, Stripe, Gusto and Shopify.

Before it sends a message, makes a payment, signs a document or deletes anything, Duet shows the action and waits for approval; trading securities and moving money between accounts are off-limits even with approval. It never directly sees passwords or sign-in tokens, and a new classifier blocks sharing of the most sensitive data, such as card numbers and government IDs.

The preview starts with Pro and Max subscribers in the US through a waitlist. Duet shares the plan's usage limits with the rest of Claude, and its background checks count toward them.