Anthropic wants Claude to text you first. On Wednesday, October 21, the company opened a research preview of Claude Duet, a standalone app for iOS, Android and claude.ai in which Claude works as what Anthropic calls a proactive agent: it sends you a morning brief, watches your connected apps, and “keeps working even when you step away.” Claude Duet costs nothing extra on Claude’s Pro and Max plans, but you can’t just download it. Access is by waitlist, US only, with invitations going out in waves.
The fine print is about usage, not money. Everything Duet does in the background, including its morning brief and its check-ins every few hours, draws on the same five-hour and weekly limits as your regular Claude chats. It’s also Anthropic’s answer to Meta’s Muse and OpenAI’s dots, two personal agents that got there first.
- Price: no extra charge during the research preview. You need Claude Pro ($20 a month, or $17 a month billed annually) or Max (from $100 a month).
- Availability: waitlist only, for US Pro and Max subscribers, opened October 21. Not on Team or Enterprise plans yet.
- The catch: Duet’s background work counts against your plan’s five-hour and weekly limits, so Anthropic says you may hit them sooner than with chat alone. It runs only on Claude Opus 5.5, and you can’t watch its browser.
What Claude Duet does while you’re away
Duet runs on its own virtual machine in the cloud, with its own browser, so your laptop and phone don’t need to stay on. You message it like a person, by typing or by voice, in one ongoing thread. According to Anthropic’s announcement, it carries over the memory, skills and connected apps from your existing Claude account, checks those accounts every few hours, and pings you only when something needs you. Anthropic says it checks at intervals because “checking nonstop would use up your plan’s limits much faster.”
The pitch is aimed at professionals and small business owners. Anthropic says Duet can draw on more than 6,000 connectors and plugins to chase unpaid invoices in QuickBooks or Stripe, prepare payroll in Gusto, send agreements through Docusign and draft follow-ups from HubSpot. Bigger jobs, like a financial model, a slide deck or a dashboard, come back as files in a Make tab, and a Tasks tab tracks work in progress, per Anthropic’s help center guide. It can also buy things for your business through Stripe’s Link wallet or Shopify’s Shop Pay, using a one-time card for each approved purchase.
Claude Duet’s price is your plan, and so are its limits
During the preview, Duet is included with Pro and Max “at no extra cost,” the help center says. Claude’s pricing page lists Pro at $20 billed monthly, or $17 a month with $200 paid up front for a year, and Max from $100 a month for 5x or 20x Pro’s usage. Free users don’t get Duet, and neither do Team or Enterprise customers yet, though Anthropic says it plans to add those plans later.
The real cost is your usage allowance. Duet burns your five-hour session and weekly limits at the same rate as chats in Claude, and its background work counts too, so “you may reach your limits sooner than with chat alone,” Anthropic warns. Larger tasks take more model turns. To soften that, everyone admitted to the preview gets one full limit reset, covering both the five-hour and weekly limits, which has to be used by November 30, 2026.
You also can’t pick a model. Duet runs on Claude Opus 5.5, which Anthropic released on September 22, and decides for itself how much effort a job needs.
It asks before it sends, pays, signs or deletes
Duet reads, drafts and prepares work on its own. Before it sends a message, makes a payment, signs a document or deletes anything, Anthropic says it shows you exactly what it’s about to do and waits for your approval. Some things are blocked even if you approve them: trading securities, moving money between accounts and accessing someone else’s account. Anthropic says Duet never directly sees your passwords or sign-in tokens, and that a new classifier rejects requests to share the most sensitive information, such as credit card numbers and government IDs.
Anthropic is unusually blunt about the risks. Duet reads email and web pages written by other people, which can hide instructions meant to hijack it, and the help center admits that “no defense is perfect.” The preview has other gaps too. Duet can’t make phone calls or text other people, Microsoft 365 isn’t supported yet, Slack works with limits, and it can’t see the files on your computer. Anthropic also says this early version “might misread a thread or miscalibrate what’s urgent,” and that personal errands like booking tickets “aren’t quite as strong.”
Anthropic is chasing Muse and dots
Claude Duet arrives late to a fast-moving fight. Meta’s Muse personal agent launched last month and shot to the top of Apple’s App Store, and OpenAI introduced dots, its “always-on agents,” at its developer conference weeks later, CNBC reported. On Meta’s earnings call the same evening, Mark Zuckerberg said more than 10 million people in the US and Canada “have set up Muse personal agents” in the past month and a half, according to CNBC. Anthropic is betting on work rather than errands: Duet is built for people who run businesses, not people booking concert tickets.
What to watch next: Anthropic says it will share more about how Duet is designed for safety “in the coming days.” The other open questions are how fast the waitlist moves, whether Duet stays free once the preview ends, and when Team and Enterprise customers get it. Pro and Max users who get in should use the one-time limit reset before November 30. We’ll update this story and our LLM News feed as invitations roll out.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Claude Duet cost?
Nothing extra during the research preview. Claude Duet is included with Claude Pro, which costs $20 a month or $17 a month billed annually, and Claude Max, which starts at $100 a month. Its work counts against your plan’s usage limits, including background checks and the morning brief.
How do I get Claude Duet?
Join the waitlist on Anthropic’s Claude Duet product page with the email address on your Claude account. You need a US Pro or Max account, and invitations go out in waves. When yours arrives, you install the app on iPhone or Android, or use it on claude.ai.
Is Claude Duet available on Team or Enterprise plans?
Not yet. Anthropic says Claude Duet isn’t available on Team or Enterprise plans during the research preview and that it plans to bring it to them later. It hasn’t given a date.
What model does Claude Duet use?
Claude Opus 5.5. You can’t switch models in Claude Duet. Anthropic says the app decides how much effort each job needs.
Sources
- Anthropic (Claude), “Introducing Claude Duet” (October 21, 2026; research preview, waitlist, Opus 5.5, virtual machine and browser, checks every few hours, approvals, off-limits actions, credentials, sensitive-information classifier, connectors, Link and Shop Pay, limitations): claude.com/resources/articles/claude-duet
- Claude Help Center, “Get started with Claude Duet” (eligibility, waitlist steps, Tasks and Make tabs, limitations, “no extra cost,” usage limits, one-time limit reset until November 30, 2026, prompt injection): support.claude.com
- Claude, Claude Duet product page and waitlist: claude.com/product/claude-duet
- Claude, Pricing (Pro $20 monthly or $17 a month billed annually at $200; Max from $100 a month): claude.com/pricing
- Anthropic, Claude Opus 5.5: anthropic.com/claude-opus-5-5
- Ashley Capoot, CNBC, “Anthropic announces preview of Claude Duet, a personal AI agent to take on Muse, Dots” (October 21, 2026, 5:42 PM ET; Muse, dots, Zuckerberg earnings-call figure): cnbc.com
- @claudeai on X, Claude Duet announcement (October 21, 2026, 3:09 PM ET): x.com/claudeai/status/2112984664256241837
- Claude on YouTube, “Introducing Claude Duet”: youtube.com/watch?v=Fb-68zqcSVs
All sources accessed October 22, 2026, between about 8:40 and 9:00 AM ET.
Last updated: October 22, 2026. To report an error, see our corrections page. Articles are drafted with AI assistance and reviewed and edited by an editor; see our editorial policy.
