The race for the ultimate AI personal assistant is officially in overdrive. Following Meta’s launch of “Muse” on September 8th and OpenAI’s rollout of “Dot” on September 30th, Anthropic has officially entered the fray with “Duet”. Announced on October 21st, Duet is a new proactive version of Claude that flips the traditional AI script: instead of waiting for your prompts, it messages you first.

Enter the Era of Proactive Agents

Duet is designed primarily for professionals and small business owners who have more on their plates than they can realistically track. Powered by Claude Opus 5.5, it acts as a trusted partner that goes through your inbox, calendar, CRM, sales numbers, and even bank accounts to figure out what needs handling—and then starts doing it.

Unlike traditional automation tools that require your laptop to remain open, Duet operates on its own virtual machine equipped with a dedicated browser. This means the AI continues its background work even if you turn off your phone or close your laptop.

What Can Duet Actually Do?

Anthropic showcased Duet’s real-world utility through a demo of a coffee company owner:

• Morning Briefs: Duet starts the day by pulling from connected apps to highlight urgent decisions and tasks.
• Prep Work: It doesn’t just hand you a to-do list; it actively drafts documents, like license applications or counter-offers, ensuring they are ready to go.
• Deep Integrations: Without needing to log into individual platforms and clean up spreadsheets, Duet can independently pull data from point-of-sale terminals, online stores, CRMs, and bank accounts to build a custom sales dashboard.
• Recruitment: Duet can organize and summarize interviewer feedback from a hiring panel. It can then pull a compensation package and draft an offer email, holding it for final approval.

With access to over 6,000 connectors and plugins in the Claude marketplace, Duet can draft reminders for unpaid invoices in QuickBooks or Stripe, run payroll in Gusto, write follow-ups in HubSpot, and even manage a Shopify store. It can also purchase items using virtual cards via Link Stripe’s digital wallet, keeping your real card numbers completely hidden from merchants.

Trust and Security

Handing an AI the keys to your inbox and bank account requires immense trust, and Anthropic has heavily emphasized its security guardrails:

• User Approval: While Duet reads and drafts on its own, it will never send a message, make a payment, sign a document, or delete anything without showing you exactly what it is about to do and waiting for your explicit approval.
• Hard Limits: Certain actions, like trading securities or moving money between accounts, are completely off-limits even if you try to approve them.
• Tiered Data Safety: It utilizes a tiered safety system where highly sensitive data (like credit card or government ID numbers) is rejected outright, and other sensitive stuff (like health info or personal finances) requires explicit permission to be sent.

Availability and Costs

Currently, Duet is in a research preview phase. It is available as a standalone app on iOS and Android, as well as on the web through claude.ai. Access is limited to a waitlist for US-based Pro and Max subscribers.

While Duet shares usage limits with your existing Claude plan, Anthropic warns that its background checks and heavy multi-step tasks (like building financial models) will burn through limits much faster than standard chatting. To conserve your plan’s limits, Duet only checks connected apps every few hours rather than constantly.