Coding agents
Claude Duet: Anthropic's proactive agent, for US subscribers only for now
Anthropic opens a preview of Claude Duet, a Claude Opus 5.5 agent that works in the background on its own cloud computer and asks for approval before acting. Limited to Pro and Max subscribers in the US.
On October 21, 2026, Anthropic opened a research preview of Claude Duet, a new app in which Claude works as a proactive agent: it comes to you with what needs your attention, takes on tasks, keeps working when you step away, and checks with you before it acts on your behalf (Anthropic).
Not in France yet. Access goes through a waitlist and is limited to Pro and Max subscribers in the US. Anthropic's help page requires "a Claude account in the US" and says Duet is available in the US only during the preview (Claude Help Center). No date has been given for Europe.
What Claude Duet does
- A brief every morning: Duet looks across your connected apps (email and calendar first), picks what matters most and can start the first steps, such as drafting replies for you to approve. During the day, it only messages you when something needs you (Anthropic).
- Tasks of every size: from scheduling meetings to heavier work such as building dashboards, creating financial or sales forecasts, prototyping and building web apps, according to Anthropic. Larger results come back as files (research brief, financial model, slide deck, dashboard) in a Make tab; a Tasks tab tracks work in progress (Claude Help Center).
- One thread: you type or send a voice message as you would to a person. Separate channels per topic are possible and share the same memory.
- A computer of its own: Duet has a virtual machine with its own browser, in the cloud. It does not need your laptop or phone to stay on. For sites without a connector, it uses that browser (Anthropic).
- Over 6,000 connectors and plugins from the Claude Marketplace: Gmail, Slack, QuickBooks, Stripe, Gusto, Docusign, HubSpot, Canva, Shopify… Purchases go through Link (Stripe's wallet) or Shop Pay, with a single-use virtual card (Anthropic, Reuters via StreetInsider).
Duet carries over the memory, skills and connectors of your Claude account, so there is almost no setup. It can also search your past Claude conversations (9to5Mac, Claude Help Center).
Model, apps and price
- Model: Claude Opus 5.5, with no way to pick another one; Duet decides how much effort a job needs (Claude Help Center).
- Where: a standalone app on iOS and Android, and on the web at claude.ai. For now Duet lives in its own app, separate from the main Claude app (Anthropic).
- Price: included in the Pro and Max plans at no extra cost, but Duet uses the same usage limits as the rest of Claude, including for its background work (brief, check-ins). Anthropic warns you may reach your limits "sooner than with chat alone". Everyone admitted gets one full limit reset, usable until November 30, 2026 (Claude Help Center). For reference, Pro costs $20 a month ($17 billed annually) and Max starts at $100 a month (Anthropic).
- Team and Enterprise: not included yet; Anthropic plans to add them later, with no timeline (Claude Duet).
The safeguards
- Approval required before it sends a message, makes a payment, signs a document or deletes anything: Duet shows exactly what it is about to do and waits for your approval. Some actions are off-limits even with your approval, such as trading securities or moving money between accounts (Anthropic).
- Actions go through the auto mode classifier, the same safeguard used in Claude Code; credential handling follows the Claude Managed Agents design, so Duet never sees your passwords or sign-in tokens.
- A dedicated classifier and a safety system prompt check each message to prevent leaks: requests to share card numbers and government IDs are rejected; health or financial data goes out only on explicit instruction.
What Duet can (and cannot) do for a developer
Duet is not a coding agent: Anthropic says it built it for professionals and small business owners. But several uses matter directly to developers.
- Prototypes and web apps: Anthropic lists prototyping and building web apps among the jobs you can hand Duet. Karan Ahuja, who leads the Duet team, uses it to schedule user interviews, work on prototypes and even ship code; Boris Cherny, who leads Claude Code, talks through his to-do list with it on walks (Anthropic).
- Your tools' context: Duet reuses the connectors, skills and memory already set up in your Claude account; tools you have connected there do not need to be connected again.
- Follow-up rather than execution: a morning brief on tickets, unanswered Slack threads or customer emails, nudges, summaries before a meeting.
The limits are clear for technical work:
- Duet cannot see the files on your computer or all of your projects, and it can read your work in Claude but not change it.
- You cannot watch or take over its browser during the preview.
- It checks your accounts at set intervals (every few hours, according to Anthropic): an urgent incident can land between two checks.
- Some connectors, such as Slack, work with limits, and Microsoft 365 is not available yet (Claude Help Center).
To write, run and test code in a repository, Anthropic's tool is still Claude Code (see our installation guide); Duet sits upstream and around it, on the organization and coordination side. For the model family, see the Claude page.
What early feedback says
Anthropic acknowledges that Duet may still misread a thread or miscalibrate urgency, and that personal tasks (booking tickets, for instance) are less polished than work tasks. Reuters and Trending Topics note the same caveats (Reuters via StreetInsider, Trending Topics). Trending Topics adds that the project was reportedly called "Claude Loop" internally, which Anthropic has not confirmed.
Duet follows the always-on agents from OpenAI (Dots) and SpaceXSI (Grok Bot), and Meta's Muse, which is aimed more at consumers (MacRumors, Trending Topics). We compare them in Claude Duet, OpenAI Dots or Grok Bot.
Sources
- Anthropic: Introducing Claude Duet (Oct 21, 2026), verified 2026-10-22
- Anthropic: Claude Duet product page, verified 2026-10-22
- Claude Help Center: Get started with Claude Duet, verified 2026-10-22
- Anthropic: Claude pricing, verified 2026-10-22
- Reuters via StreetInsider: Anthropic unveils Claude Duet AI agent app (Oct 21, 2026), verified 2026-10-22
- MacRumors: Anthropic Launches Claude Duet, a Proactive AI Agent (Oct 21, 2026), verified 2026-10-22
- 9to5Mac: Anthropic takes on ChatGPT Dots and Meta Muse with Claude Duet (Oct 21, 2026), verified 2026-10-22
- Trending Topics: Claude Duet, Anthropic's New A.I. Agent (Oct 21, 2026), verified 2026-10-22
Key takeaway: Claude Duet is a background agent built on Claude Opus 5.5, included in Pro and Max but drawing on your usage limits, that asks for approval before it sends, pays, signs or deletes; it is open only in the US, through a waitlist.
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