Anthropic unveils Claude Duet, an AI agent to rival OpenAI and Meta

Anthropic has unveiled a preview of Claude Duet, an artificial intelligence agent designed for small businesses and professionals, putting it in direct competition with OpenAI’s Dots and Meta’s Muse, Geo News reported.

The company announced the agent in a blog post on Wednesday and opened sign-ups for early access the same day.

What Duet does

According to Anthropic, Claude Duet can:

• send users a daily brief
• keep track of connected apps
• carry out tasks such as building dashboards, scheduling meetings and creating forex forecasts

“It comes to you with what needs your attention, completes tasks you ask of it, keeps working even when you step away, and checks with you before it acts on your behalf,” Anthropic said.

The company said Duet is focused on the workplace. Personal errands, such as booking tickets, are not yet “quite as strong”, it said.

Eligible users will be able to use Duet through a standalone app or the Claude website. In its own announcement, Anthropic said the research preview starts by waitlist with US Pro and Max subscribers, runs on iOS, Android and claude.ai, and is built around its Claude Opus 5.5 model.

How it works

According to Anthropic’s announcement:

• Morning brief: each morning Duet sends a short summary of the most important items across a user’s connected apps, and messages again only when something needs attention. It checks connected accounts every few hours rather than constantly, to save usage limits.
• Works in the background: it has a virtual machine with its own browser, so it keeps working even when the user’s laptop or phone is off.
• Approval first: before it sends a message, makes a payment, signs a document or deletes anything, it shows exactly what it is about to do and waits for approval. Some actions, such as trading securities or moving money between accounts, are off-limits even with approval.
• Connections: it can use more than 6,000 connectors and plugins, for example to find missed Gmail and Slack messages or check QuickBooks and Stripe for unpaid invoices.

The race for AI agents

AI agents are programs that can take actions on a user’s behalf rather than just answering questions. The big AI companies are now racing to put them in front of users:

• Meta’s Muse, promoted as a “personal AI agent”, launched last month and shot to the top of Apple’s App Store. Meta has aimed it at consumers.
• OpenAI’s Dots, which the company calls “always-on agents”, were unveiled at its annual developer conference weeks later and target both businesses and consumers.
• Anthropic’s Duet is aimed squarely at work and small businesses.

Anthropic’s launch comes as rival products have begun to show real traction. Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg told analysts on Wednesday that more than 10 million people in the US and Canada had set up Muse agents in the past six weeks, CNBC reported. Anthropic itself cautioned that Duet is at an early stage and “might misread a thread or miscalibrate what’s urgent”.

Checking before acting

A key part of Anthropic’s pitch is that Duet asks before it acts. In the company’s words, the agent “checks with you before it acts on your behalf”, even as it keeps working when the user steps away.

A big year for Anthropic

The launch caps a busy month for the company. Anthropic said recently it would commit 5pc of its shares to a public benefit fund as it prepares a possible stock market listing, and its rivalry with OpenAI has also played out in funding battles.