AI company built new tool in week and a half to bring Claude Code capabilities to non-technical users through folder-based file management in desktop app
Anthropic announced a new tool called Cowork on Monday, designed as a more accessible version of Claude Code. Built into the Claude Desktop app, the new tool lets users designate a specific folder where Claude can read or modify files, with further instructions given through the standard chat interface. The result is similar to a sandboxed instance of Claude Code but requires far less technical savvy to set up.
Currently in research preview, Cowork is only available to Max subscribers on $100 or $200 per month plans, with a waitlist available for users on other plans. The tool, which the company describes as Claude Code for the rest of your work, leverages the abilities of Anthropic’s popular Claude Code software development assistant but is designed for non-technical users as opposed to programmers.
Inspired by existing user behavior
The new tool is inspired in part by the growing number of subscribers using Claude Code to achieve non-coding tasks, treating it as a general purpose agentic AI tool. Anthropic says it started working on Cowork partly because people were already using Claude Code for general knowledge work tasks anyway. Anthropic’s goal is to make it something any knowledge worker, from developers to marketers, could get rolling with right away.
Cowork is built on the Claude Agent SDK, which means it draws on the same underlying model as Claude Code. The folder partition gives an easy way to manage what files Cowork has access to, and because the app does not require command-line tools or virtual environments, it is less intimidating for non-technical users.
Some of the use cases Anthropic showcased include reorganizing downloads, turning receipt screenshots into expense spreadsheets and producing first drafts from notes across a user’s desktop. Anthropic gives the example of assembling an expense report from a folder of receipt photos, but Claude Code users have also put the system to work managing media files, scanning social media posts or analyzing conversations.
Security risks require caution
Similar to Claude Code, Cowork is designed to take strings of actions without user input, a potentially dangerous approach if the tool is given vague or contradictory instructions. In a blog post announcing the new tool, Anthropic explicitly warns about the risk of prompt injection or deleted files, recommending that users make instructions as clear and unambiguous as possible.
The company addressed the issue directly in the announcement, warning users about the risks and offering advice such as limiting access to trusted sites when using the Claude in Chrome extension. However, Anthropic acknowledged the tool remains vulnerable to these attacks despite the company’s defenses, noting that agent safety, the task of securing Claude’s real-world actions, is still an active area of development in the industry.
Like any other AI agent, Claude Cowork comes with security risks, particularly around prompt injections, where attackers trick language models into changing course by inserting malicious hidden instructions into webpages, images, links or any content found on the open web. Generally speaking, you expect a Claude Code using developer or a hobbyist geeky enough to play around with Model Context Protocol to understand the risks in what they are doing. Less technical users might not have that foresight.
Rapid development and competition
Anthropic reportedly built Cowork in approximately a week and a half, largely using Claude Code itself, according to the head of Claude Code, Boris Cherny. The tool can work autonomously and has been described as less like a back and forth and more like leaving messages for a coworker.
UK-based programmer Simon Willison wrote that this is a general agent that looks well positioned to bring the wildly powerful capabilities of Claude Code to a wider audience. He added he would be very surprised if Gemini and OpenAI do not follow suit with their own offerings in this category.
With Cowork, Anthropic is now competing more directly with tools like Microsoft’s Copilot for the enterprise productivity market. The company’s strategy of starting with a developer focused agent and then making it accessible to everyone else could give it an edge, as Cowork will inherit the already proven capabilities of Claude Code rather than being built as a consumer assistant from scratch. This approach could make Anthropic, which is already reportedly outpacing rival OpenAI in enterprise adoption, an increasingly attractive option for businesses looking for AI tools that can handle work autonomously.
The launch has also sparked concern among startup founders about the competitive threat posed by major AI labs bundling agent capabilities into their core products. Cowork’s ability to handle file organization, document generation and data extraction overlaps with dozens of AI startups that have raised funding to solve these specific problems.