Claude Duet: Anthropic's Always-On Agent Preview
The research preview runs on Claude Opus 5.5, checks connected accounts every few hours, and asks for approval before payments or signatures.
In short
Claude Duet is Anthropic's proactive always-on agent: since October 22, 2026 it keeps working on cloud machines as a research preview even while you are offline.
At a glance
- Launched October 22, 2026 as a research preview on iOS, Android and claude.ai; waitlist access for Pro and Max users in the US.
- Runs on Claude Opus 5.5 inside cloud VMs and reaches services through more than 6,000 connectors from the Claude Marketplace.
- Approval is required before messages, payments, signatures and deletions; securities trading and account transfers stay blocked.
- Duet polls connected accounts only every few hours, and background runs draw on the same usage limits as other Claude products.
- Team and Enterprise plans are excluded at launch; a 1Password integration is announced but carries no date.
Claude Duet is Anthropic's proactive always-on agent: since October 22, 2026 it keeps working on cloud machines as a research preview even while you are offline. Rather than sitting idle until prompted, it looks into connected accounts on its own schedule and opens the day with a morning brief. Claude Opus 5.5 does the reasoning; the front ends are iOS and Android apps plus claude.ai.
The work it is built for
Per the t3n write-up, the target users are working professionals and owner-operators at smaller companies carrying too much routine admin. Duet condenses Gmail and Slack threads, tracks unpaid Stripe invoices and keeps dashboards current. The coverage also lists appointment scheduling, light financial forecasting, and standing up prototypes and small web apps.
Reach comes from the Claude Marketplace: more than 6,000 connectors and plug-ins. Named integrations include Gmail, Slack, Stripe, Docusign and Shopify, with Canva and LinkedIn for campaign drafts and job postings. Purchases route through Stripe Link using virtual cards, so the real card number never enters the flow.
Approval gates, and two permanent walls
Duet stops for a human before anything consequential: sending a message, moving money, signing a document, deleting content. Two categories are walled off for good, consent or not — securities trading and transfers between accounts. Anthropic says passwords and auth tokens are never exposed to the agent directly, and a 1Password integration is planned, though none of the three reports attaches a date to it.
On top of that sit prompt-injection defenses carried over from Anthropic's browser research and a classifier that screens outbound messages for leaking sensitive data. The company reports completed red-team exercises and third-party security testing. What it does not publish is any hit-rate figure for those layers, so their real-world strength is unquantified here.
Where it falls short
Anthropic volunteers the weak spots. The agent can read a thread wrong, misjudge how urgent a task is, and miss anything that lands between two check cycles. Personal errands such as booking tickets go worse, because the preview is tuned for work. And genuine continuous watching runs into cost: background checks consume the same shared usage allowance as other Claude products, which is why Duet currently looks in only every few hours.
The fourth always-on agent this year
Anthropic arrives last. SpaceXAI's Grok Bot opened its beta in August 2026; Meta's Muse and OpenAI's Dots both shipped in September 2026. What separates Duet is less the pitch than the restraints around it — mandatory approvals, virtual cards, and a hard list of actions it will not take.
Open questions
No standalone price appears in any of the three reports: the preview rides along with Pro and Max, US-only for now and behind a waitlist, with Team and Enterprise left out. Whether the check interval tightens is unresolved. So is the bigger one — whether a proactive agent removes more work than the supervision it creates.
FAQ
How much does Claude Duet cost?
The research preview is bundled into the Pro and Max plans, initially via a US waitlist. None of the available reports names a separate price for it.
Does Claude Duet keep running when my device is off?
Yes. It executes on virtual machines in the cloud, so your laptop or phone does not need to be awake.
Can Claude Duet move money without my approval?
No. Payments need explicit approval, purchases use virtual cards, and securities trading plus account-to-account transfers are blocked outright.
