Anthropic on Monday unveiled Cowork, a new tool designed to provide a more user-friendly experience compared to Claude Code. Integrated directly into the Claude Desktop application, Cowork allows users to specify a folder for Claude to access and modify files, with instructions provided through the standard chat interface.
The new tool essentially creates a sandboxed environment similar to Claude Code, but without the need for extensive technical expertise to set up. According to Anthropic, Cowork is currently in research preview and available exclusively to Max subscribers, with a waitlist in place for users on other subscription plans.
Cowork is built upon the Claude Agent SDK, utilizing the same underlying model as Claude Code. The folder partition feature simplifies the management of file access for Cowork. By eliminating the need for command-line tools or virtual environments, Anthropic aims to make the technology more accessible to non-technical users.
Anthropic developed Cowork in response to a growing trend among Claude Code subscribers who were using the tool for non-coding tasks, effectively treating it as a general-purpose agentic AI. The company suggests potential use cases such as assembling expense reports from a folder of receipt images.
The absence of command-line tools and virtual environments lowers the barrier to entry for individuals without coding backgrounds, opening up new possibilities for how users can leverage the power of AI agents. The tool's current research preview status suggests that Anthropic is actively gathering user feedback to refine and improve Cowork before a wider release.
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