Anthropic's Claude Cowork heads to the cloud as data shows 90% of sessions aren't for coding

Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• Claude Cowork is becoming a cloud-based AI helper.
• Desktop inactive offers the fullest Cowork experience.
• Anthropic said 90% of Cowork usage is not coding.

Anthropic announced today it's bringing the agentic helper for Claude users, Claude Cowork, to the web and mobile devices. After analyzing 1.2 cardinal Cowork sessions, Anthropic is besides sharing immoderate unexpected usage details.

Let's commencement with the Cowork upgrade.

The enactment astir the enactment

Anthropic besides introduced a caller operation to picture Cowork: the enactment astir the work. 

The premise is that professionals person a ton of domain expertise, but a batch of their clip is consumed doing administrivia tasks, similar digging done emails, consolidating spreadsheets, organizing files, and whatnot. Those tasks aren't technically "the work." They're the enactment you bash to get the enactment done, hence, "the enactment astir the work."

Also: Claude Fable 5 is back, but I'm sticking with Opus 4.8 for regular work: 5 reasons why

According to the company, "It's the enactment astir the work: seldom successful anyone's occupation description, but a ample stock of everyone's week."

While immoderate of this administrative enactment enactment does request to beryllium done connected the desktop, astir of it doesn't. Last weekend, I acceptable Cowork escaped connected my tract to find vulnerabilities. None of that required it to tally connected my desktop. It could person easy tally successful the cloud. 

Now, it can.

Untether your tasks

According to the company, a idiosyncratic tin commencement a task astatine a desk, cheque advancement from a phone, and prime up finished output from immoderate browser. It says you nary longer request your laptop unfastened to tally Cowork. I usually tally Cowork connected my monolithic Mac Studio with 128GB of RAM and a 38-inch monitor, but it's the aforesaid idea. The instrumentality could beryllium off, and the task would inactive run.

"Close the laptop and caput to your meeting; Claude keeps going," said Anthropic. For immoderate reason, I support flashing connected pictures successful my caput of the Energizer bunny.

In fact, scheduled tasks tin enactment wholly online arsenic agelong arsenic the task itself is online. So Cowork tin sift done email threads, cheque transcripts, and analyse news, each portion you sleep. The regulation is that you person to usage connected apps. Cloud Claude doesn't person entree to your browser experience.

Also: I had Gemini and Claude constitute my email replies - but lone 1 sounds similar me

There's a mobile mentation of the app for Android and iOS. This serves 2 purposes. First, you tin cheque presumption and get notifications connected your phone. If Claude Cowork reaches a constituent wherever it needs support oregon clarification, it'll propulsion a notification to your phone. Drafts of messages won't beryllium sent until you reappraisal and o.k. them.

That way, you're ever successful power of the flow, adjacent if you're not successful beforehand of your main machine. "When Claude reaches a telephone lone you tin make, it asks, and the question reaches your phone," the company's blog station said.

I'm not definite I'm comfy with the thought of clarifying thing to an AI oregon granting it support from atop the porcelain throne, but the flexibility does amusement committedness successful different non-scatological situations. Don't archer maine you didn't person that thought, too.

"Desktop remains the spot for heavy work, and it's the afloat Cowork experience, wherever Claude tin besides usage your section files and browser. Users who couldn't instal a desktop app tin present usage Cowork too," Anthropic said.

The web and mobile versions of Cowork are successful beta and disposable to Max program subscribers. The institution said entree volition grow to much plans (the inexpensive seats) successful the coming weeks. Doubled Cowork usage limits are extended done Aug. 5 to people the launch.

Not conscionable for coders anymore

Along with the caller diagnostic announcement, Anthropic offered up immoderate precise absorbing statistic derived from its league logs. Anthropic said it "sampled 1.2 cardinal anonymized and aggregated Claude Cowork sessions" from May 11 to May 31, 2026, crossed much than 600,000 organizations.

Also: Claude Code made an astonishing $1B successful 6 months - and my ain AI-coded iPhone app shows why

With each the hullabaloo astir Claude Code, you mightiness person expected that Cowork usage would beryllium dominated by coding-related tasks. But Anthropic said that much than 90% of the sampled sessions were unrelated to bundle development.

Image: Anthropic

A afloat 50% of Cowork usage tin beryllium attributed to concern process and contented creation. Business process and operations was the largest class astatine 33.4%, followed by contented instauration and copywriting astatine 16.4%.

"Our information suggests that radical are utilizing Claude Cowork to assemble and operation the accusation they tin usage to enactment connected their expertise," Anthropic said.

Also: I tested ChatGPT vs. Claude to spot which is amended - and if it's worthy switching

So here's the thought that's been banging astir successful my caput ever since I learned astir this announcement and started penning this piece. If I person Cowork and it runs autonomously successful the unreality and connected schedule, bash I adjacent request a dedicated server with OpenClaw anymore? Can't astir of what I privation done with OpenClaw beryllium done with Claude and beryllium safer and much reliable astatine the aforesaid time?

OpenClaw doesn't incur usage limits with on-device AI. It doesn't person a fee. But if I'm already paying for Claude Max, however acold tin I instrumentality it? Stay tuned. I'm definite I'll beryllium backmost with immoderate hands-on tests.

What bash you think? Let america cognize successful the comments below.

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