Anthropic Launches Claude Duet AI Agent Preview — SkimNews
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- Anthropic announced Claude Duet, an AI agent for professionals and small business owners launching as a "research preview" on iOS, Android, and the web — directly competing with Meta's Muse and OpenAI's Dots.
- Claude Duet is built around Claude Opus 5.5 and proactively sends morning briefs on important items across connected apps, while handling tasks ranging from scheduling meetings to building dashboards, financial forecasts, and web apps.
- Anthropic equipped the agent with a virtual machine and browser, requiring user approval before major actions like sending payments or deletions.
- Claude Duet includes a new "dedicated classifier and safety system prompt" designed to reject requests to share sensitive information such as credit card numbers, Anthropic said.
- Anthropic acknowledged Duet is an "early version" that may misread threads or miscalibrate what's urgent, and said the agent isn't yet strong at personal errands like booking tickets.
- Access to Claude Duet requires joining a waitlist and is limited to US-based Pro or Max subscribers on Anthropic's plans.
Why it matters: Anthropic is entering the proactive AI agent market with a product that runs background tasks for professionals, but the company itself flags it as an early version prone to misjudging urgency. The explicit approval gates and a new classifier aimed at locking down credit card numbers suggest Anthropic sees safety infrastructure as a differentiator against Meta's Muse and OpenAI's Dots.
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