Claude Duet explained: what Anthropic's new proactive agent does, who can use it and what it costs

You start the day with forty unread emails, a client invoice that is two weeks late and a supplier call you forgot to confirm. Anthropic's new Claude Duet is built for exactly that morning: instead of waiting for you to open a chat, it sends you a short brief of what needs you, works on tasks in the background and asks before it sends or pays for anything.

Here is the short answer. Claude Duet opened as a research preview on October 21, 2026. It is a separate app for iOS and Android, also usable on the web at claude.ai, and it runs on Claude Opus 5.5. Access is by waitlist, only for Claude Pro and Max subscribers in the US, and there is no separate price: it uses the same usage limits as your Claude plan. If you run a business in Canada, you cannot use it yet, but you can prepare your Claude setup so it is ready when access widens.

Claude Duet at a glance

What Claude Duet actually does

Anthropic describes three jobs, and they map neatly onto how a small business owner's day goes.

• A morning brief. Each morning Duet sends a short summary of the most important items across the apps you have connected, then stays quiet until something needs you.
• Background work. You hand it a task in a message and it works out which apps and steps to use. It has its own virtual machine with its own browser, so your laptop or phone does not need to stay on. You get a notification when the task is done or needs your review.
• Check ins when it matters. Duet checks your connected accounts every few hours rather than constantly, because constant checking would burn through your plan's limits much faster. You can tell it what you want to hear about and how often.

Anthropic's own list of business tasks is practical rather than flashy: finding missed Gmail and Slack messages and drafting replies, checking QuickBooks or Stripe for unpaid invoices and drafting reminders, preparing payroll in Gusto for you to review, preparing agreements for signature in Docusign, drafting follow ups from HubSpot deal history, turning a launch into a social campaign in Canva, and setting up or managing a Shopify store. It can also build larger pieces of work such as dashboards, decks and financial or sales forecasts.

How it differs from the regular Claude app

Duet uses your existing Claude account, so your memory, skills and connected apps carry over from the first message. The difference is who starts the conversation. In the regular Claude app you open a chat and work alongside Claude. Duet comes to you: it tells you what needs attention each morning, takes tasks by message and reaches out when one is done or needs your approval.

For now Duet lives in its own app, separate from the main Claude app. Anthropic says what it learns from early users will shape how the two work together.

Usage limits and cost

There is no separate Duet price during the preview. It is included in Pro and Max and draws from the same usage pool as the rest of Claude, but it uses that pool differently from a normal chat. Its background checks count toward your limits, and bigger jobs such as a financial model or a deck take more model turns and background work.

For reference, Anthropic's US pricing page lists Pro at $20 a month billed monthly or $17 a month on an annual plan ($200 billed up front), and Max from $100 a month, with tax not included. The page shows a $ sign without naming the currency, and Duet itself is only offered in the US, so do not treat these as Canadian prices.

What that means in practice (our estimate): because Duet checks your accounts every few hours whether or not you are chatting, a Pro subscriber who already hits limits with daily chat use will likely feel the squeeze sooner. Anthropic has not published a separate Duet allowance or a number of daily tasks, so watch your usage in Settings for the first week before handing it large projects.

Safety: what it will and will not do on its own

An agent that reads your email and can pay bills raises obvious questions. Here is what Anthropic says is built in:

• Approval before sensitive actions. Duet reads, drafts and prepares on its own, but before it sends a message, makes a payment, signs a document or deletes anything, it shows you exactly what it is about to do and waits.
• Hard limits. Some actions are off limits even with your approval, including trading securities and moving money between accounts.
• No direct access to passwords. Credential handling follows the design Anthropic uses for Claude Managed Agents, so Duet never directly sees your passwords or sign in tokens.
• A sensitive information check. A dedicated classifier and safety prompt check each message. Requests to share the strictest tier of information, such as credit card numbers and government ID, are rejected. Health or personal finance details go out only when you have explicitly told Duet to send them.
• Purchases through a virtual card. When it buys something for your business through Link, Stripe's digital wallet, Duet confirms the item with you, Link asks you to approve the spend, and payment uses a virtual card so your real card number is not shared. It can also check out with Shop Pay.
• You can pull the plug. You can disconnect any app Duet has access to.

What is not ready yet

Anthropic is unusually direct about the limits of this preview, and they matter if you run a business on it:

• It may misread a thread or get the urgency of something wrong.
• Because it checks every few hours, it can miss something that arrives between check ins. Do not rely on it for anything that needs a reply within minutes.
• It is built around work, so personal errands such as booking tickets are weaker.
• It cannot yet show you its browser while it works.
• Signing in to sites with logins saved in 1Password is listed as coming soon, as is a richer visual editor for Shopify storefronts.

Common problems to plan for

These are not reported failures; they are the predictable friction points of any agent that reads your inbox, based on the published features and limits.

• Too many connected apps on day one. More connections mean a noisier brief and more background work against your limits. Start with the two or three apps where money or customers live.
• Approving on autopilot. The approval step only protects you if you read it. Check the recipient, the amount and the attachment every time.
• Shared inboxes. If staff also reply from the same mailbox, decide who answers what before Duet starts drafting replies to the same threads.

A delegation list you can use today

Whether you get access next week or next year, the hard part of any assistant is deciding what to hand over. Sort your recurring tasks into three columns now:

Our take

Based on the published features and pricing, not on hands on testing: Claude Duet is the most small business focused agent Anthropic has shipped. The task list reads like a bookkeeper's and office manager's to do list, and the approval rules are sensible defaults for anyone nervous about letting AI touch money.

If you are a US based solo owner already on Pro or Max: join the waitlist. There is no extra cost, and the morning brief alone could save time if your work is spread across email, calendar and invoicing tools.

If you run a business in Canada: you cannot use it yet, and Anthropic has not said when other countries will follow. You lose little by waiting. The regular Claude Pro plan already lets you connect apps and hand off and schedule tasks, so setting up your connectors and memory now means Duet would start with your context if it arrives here.

If your team is on a Claude Team or Enterprise plan: Duet is not included yet. Do not switch plans for it.

When the pick would change: if your business depends on replying within minutes, such as live customer chat or urgent bookings, a check every few hours is too slow, and a dedicated help desk or booking tool fits better. For a wider look at the main AI assistants, see our ChatGPT vs Claude vs Gemini comparison.

Sources

• Anthropic: Introducing Claude Duet
• Claude Duet product page and FAQ (official)
• Claude plans and pricing (official)