Claude Goes Beyond Code, Introduces Cowork For File Editing, Planning, And Automation

The experience is meant to feel less like a back-and-forth chat and more like delegating to a teammate. Users can set a task and Cowork will make a plan and execute it step by step, sharing progress and letting new tasks be queued. Anthropic says Cowork is built on the same foundations as Claude Code, enabling it to take “strings of actions” with minimal hand-holding.

Anthropic is emphasising safety controls alongside autonomy. Cowork can only see the folders and connectors the user explicitly approves, and it asks before taking “significant actions” so the user can steer or stop it.

The company also warns that agents with file access could take destructive actions (including deleting local files) if instructions are unclear, and highlights the industry-wide risk of prompt-injection attacks from malicious web content.

Cowork can be extended with integrations: it supports Claude’s existing “connectors” for pulling in external information from workplace apps, and pairing it with Claude’s Chrome experience enables browser-dependent tasks such as web research and data pulls.

For now, Cowork is available only in the macOS app for Claude Max subscribers, with other users directed to a waitlist.

Anthropic said it will “improve it rapidly,” with planned upgrades like cross-device sync and a Windows release. The preview lands amid a race to build practical AI agents that can safely carry work across files, apps, and the web.