Anthropic just shipped the opposite of a chatbot. Claude Duet, launched October 21 as a research preview, does not wait for your prompt — it reads your email and calendar overnight, sends you a morning brief on what needs you, keeps checking your connected apps every few hours, and does real work on its own cloud computer while your devices are off.
It runs on Claude Opus 5.5, and Anthropic's pitch is trust: Duet will not send a message, make a payment, sign a document or delete a file without your approval. Payments run through Stripe Link and Shop Pay, and the company says Duet never directly sees your passwords.
What it actually does
- Morning brief across email and calendar, with replies already drafted
- Background checks every few hours on the apps you choose (6,000+ connectors via the Claude Marketplace — Gmail, Slack, QuickBooks, Stripe, Gusto, DocuSign, HubSpot, Shopify…)
- Background work on its own cloud machine with a browser: dashboards, forecasts, invoice chasing, payroll prep, decks, even small web apps
- An approval gate before anything sensitive leaves the building
Anthropic's own launch examples are bookkeeping-grade, aimed at small business owners: a $640 county permit fee waiting for approval, a contract redlined to Net 60, 27 wrong delivery orders with refunds already drafted.
The honest limits
Anthropic prints its caveats at launch: Duet "can still misjudge what's urgent," its background checks consume your existing plan usage limits, and access is narrow — US Claude Pro and Max subscribers only, waitlist-only, with Team and Enterprise plans not included yet and no dates given.
The race it just joined
Duet is the fourth always-on agent in about six weeks: Meta's Muse (September, widest consumer reach), OpenAI's Dots (DevDay, September 29, a reported 4,000+ apps), Google's Gemini agent features rolling through its products, and now Duet — the smallest launch, the flagship model underneath, and the strictest approval gate.
Full guide with the complete comparison table, pricing notes and FAQ: Claude Duet guide on ToolPilot Pro
Update, October 23: The same agent pattern now has a documented dark twin — ARTEX, the autonomous AI pentesting tool found behind Japan's breach wave. Same machinery, with the asking removed.
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