Anthropic’s Claude Cowork feature has been tied to your desktop since launch. That changes starting today, as the company is expanding Cowork to web and mobile. Max plan subscribers get beta access first over the coming days, and Anthropic says other plans will follow in the coming weeks.
If you haven’t used Cowork before, the idea is simple. You give Claude a task, and it works through your files, inbox, calendar, and other connected tools until it’s done. The problem was that shutting your laptop lid also shut down the task. Not anymore.
Your laptop is no longer the bottleneck
Since Claude Cowork was previously dependent on your desktop running in the background, some long tasks were harder to execute. As soon as you closed your laptop, the task stopped. The new update fixes that, as Claude can now work with the cloud and your phone.
Now, you can kick off a task from your desk and check on it later from your phone, wherever you happen to be. Scheduled tasks run in the cloud now, so you can close your laptop and take that nap, and Claude will keep doing its work.
Claude still won’t go rogue on you, though. Whenever it hits a decision that needs your input, it pings you, and nothing gets sent out without your say-so.
What are people actually using Cowork for?
With the announcement of its latest Claude Cowork feature, Anthropic also revealed its usage number, and color me surprised.
If, like me, you also thought that Claude Cowork was mainly used by software developers and programmers, you would be wrong. Anthropic says over 90% of usage is everyday work, like business operations and content creation.
That’s a pretty telling number. It shows that AI agents aren’t just for people who can code. They are quickly becoming a tool for anyone drowning in spreadsheets, emails, and decks. If you have ever wished you could hand off the boring parts of your job to someone else, this update makes that even more possible.
I’ll be curious to see how this expansion to web and mobile changes the numbers even further. Once people realize they don’t need to be tied to a laptop to use Cowork, I expect even more of that everyday work to shift over to Claude.
