The short version
- Claude Duet is a new app from Anthropic, announced October 21. It's an AI agent that comes to you, instead of waiting for you to type.
- It reads your connected apps, sends a morning brief, flags what needs attention and takes on tasks in the background on its own cloud computer.
- It's a research preview with a waitlist, open only to US subscribers on Claude Pro ($20 a month, about ₹1,900) and Max (from $100, about ₹9,500). There's no extra charge, but it uses your plan's limits.
- It runs on Claude Opus 5.5 and asks before it sends, pays, signs or deletes anything.
So what actually is it?
Most chatbots sit there until you ask something. Duet flips that. Anthropic pitches it at "professionals and small business owners with more on their plates than they can track".
Each morning it sends a short brief from your email, calendar and work apps, with drafted replies ready to approve. After that, it checks those accounts every few hours and messages you only when something needs you. Anthropic says it checks every few hours rather than constantly because constant checking would use up your plan's limits much faster.
Everything happens in one ongoing chat. It also brings over the memory, skills and connected apps from your existing Claude account, so setup is light. Anthropic's Mike Krieger said Opus 5.5 was the company's "first model with the judgment to be proactive in the right ways".
Image: Zerocade
What can it do?
Anthropic lists admin jobs like scheduling meetings and chasing follow-ups. It also lists heavier work that comes back as files: briefs, dashboards, sales forecasts, financial models, slide decks and even small web apps. Duet has its own virtual machine with a browser, so it keeps working even when your phone or laptop is off.
It plugs into more than 6,000 connectors and plugins from the Claude Marketplace, including Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Slack, HubSpot, QuickBooks and DocuSign. For sites without a connector, it uses its cloud browser. It can also shop through Stripe's Link and Shopify's Shop Pay, which create a one-time card for each purchase so your real card number isn't shared.
Image: Zerocade
There are clear gaps for now. You can't watch Duet work or take over its browser, it can't make calls or send texts, and it doesn't monitor around the clock. It doesn't work with Microsoft 365 yet, which rules it out for a lot of offices. Anthropic also admits it's weaker at personal errands like booking tickets.
The safety bits
This is an AI with access to your inbox, so the guardrails matter. Anthropic says Duet never sees your passwords, browser cookies or sign-in tokens. Before it sends a message, makes a payment, signs a document or deletes something, it shows you exactly what it's about to do and waits for approval.
Some things are blocked even if you say yes: trading securities and moving money between accounts. A separate classifier also stops it sharing card numbers, bank details, government IDs or login details. Anthropic is upfront that prompt injection, where a malicious email or web page tries to trick an AI into doing something, remains a risk.
One detail worth knowing: disconnecting an app doesn't erase what Duet has already learned from it. You reset its memory separately.
How it compares
Image: Zerocade
Duet arrives in a crowded month. Meta launched its Muse agent in September, and OpenAI's dots followed on September 29 for ChatGPT Pro and Business Premium users. All three chase the same idea: an assistant that notices what needs doing and suggests it, rather than waiting for instructions.
Can you get it in India?
Not yet. The preview is US-only, access opens in waves from the waitlist, and Team and Enterprise plans aren't included, though Anthropic plans to add them later. It's on iOS, Android and claude.ai. Big tasks eat into the same five-hour and weekly usage limits as normal Claude chats, and new users get one full limit reset to use before November 30.
There's no date for other countries. If you're in the US on Pro or Max, join the waitlist on Claude's site. Everyone else should watch for a wider rollout.
