What is Claude Cowork
Claude Cowork is Anthropic's autonomous AI agent designed for knowledge work tasks. It reads, edits, and creates files in your workspace, automating tasks such as creating expense reports, organizing files, synthesizing research, and building presentations.
How to use Claude Cowork
- Grant Folder Access: Select the specific folder where you want Claude Cowork to operate. The agent can only access files within folders you explicitly grant.
- Describe Your Task: Tell Claude Cowork what you need in natural language, e.g., "Create an expense report from these receipt screenshots," or "Organize my downloads folder by file type."
- Watch Autonomous Execution: Claude Cowork analyzes your request, creates an execution plan, and works autonomously, displaying real-time progress updates.
- Review and Refine: Review the results in your workspace folder. Provide feedback in natural language for adjustments.
Features of Claude Cowork
- Autonomous file operations (reads, edits, creates files)
- Parallel task execution with sub-agent architecture
- Sandboxed security environment for data protection
- Intelligent content creation (expense reports, presentations, etc.)
- Smart file organization (renaming, folder structuring)
- Research synthesis from multiple sources
- Transparent operations with real-time progress updates
Use Cases of Claude Cowork
- Expense Report Creation: Compiling receipts into formal expense reports.
- Research Synthesis: Consolidating scattered research notes into coherent reports.
- File Organization & Cleanup: Renaming files, creating folder structures, and organizing messy folders.
- Presentation Deck Creation: Generating draft presentation decks from source materials.
Pricing
Claude Cowork is available to Claude Max subscribers. Claude Max is priced between $100-$200 per month.
FAQ
What is Claude Cowork and how does it differ from Claude Code? Claude Cowork is an autonomous AI agent for knowledge work tasks like creating expense reports, organizing files, synthesizing research, and building presentations. Claude Code focuses on software development. Claude Cowork requires no coding knowledge and operates through natural language instructions for everyday business tasks.
Who can access Claude Cowork? Claude Cowork is available as a research preview exclusively to Claude Max subscribers on macOS Desktop. Windows support is planned for future releases.
Is my data safe when using Claude Cowork? Yes. Claude Cowork operates in a sandboxed virtual machine environment, isolating it from your broader system. The agent can only access folders you explicitly grant permission to, and you can revoke access at any time. All file processing follows Anthropic's privacy policy and security standards.
What types of tasks can Claude Cowork handle? Tasks include creating expense reports from receipt images, organizing and renaming files, synthesizing research notes into reports, generating presentation decks, extracting and structuring data from documents, and creating summaries from meeting notes.
When was Claude Cowork launched? Anthropic launched Claude Cowork as a research preview on January 12, 2026.
Does Claude Cowork require an internet connection? Yes, an active internet connection is required for AI processing on Anthropic's servers, though file operations occur locally within the sandboxed environment.
Can I use Claude Cowork across multiple devices? Currently, Claude Cowork does not support cross-device synchronization and operates on a single device (macOS Desktop). Session persistence is planned for future updates.
How does Claude Cowork handle parallel tasks? It uses a sub-agent architecture to break complex tasks into smaller components that can be executed in parallel, reducing completion time.
