Anthropic has taken its Claude Cowork AI agent beyond the desktop, launching it on web and mobile for Max subscribers from Tuesday. Originally released as a standalone desktop application in January, the tool now allows users to initiate tasks at their desk, receive progress updates on their phone, and retrieve completed output later — even with the laptop closed.
The update marks a deliberate push by Anthropic to position Cowork less as a coding aid and more as an autonomous administrative colleague. The agent can run background tasks across devices, request human input when decisions arise, and handle what the company calls the 'work around the work' — the essential but secondary tasks that keep organisations running. A company example describes the agent preparing a client briefing document at 6am by reviewing emails, transcripts and news, then leaving a draft follow-up email for the user to review over coffee.
Early usage data, drawn from 1.2 million anonymised Cowork sessions across more than 600,000 organisations in the last two weeks of May, reveals the tool's primary role. Business process operations — pulling updates into reports, building onboarding checklists and reconciling spreadsheets — accounted for 33.4% of sessions, concentrated in finance, HR and administration roles. Content creation and copywriting made up 16.4%, while software development represented only 8.7%. 'While coding is still — understandably — one of the uses of AI that gets the most attention, the use of AI for everyday business work is on the rise,' Anthropic said.
The expansion comes as AI firms compete to embed their products into everyday workplace tools. OpenAI has similarly broadened Codex from a development tool into a platform for reports, spreadsheets and presentations. Anthropic has also launched Claude Tag, an always-on assistant that lives inside Slack and acts as an AI teammate. For UK businesses, the shift means AI agents are increasingly capable of handling routine administrative work, potentially reducing the need for junior staff in finance, marketing and HR functions.
From a regulatory perspective, the UK Information Commissioner's Office has yet to issue specific guidance on autonomous AI agents that operate across devices and request human input. The EU AI Act, which classifies general-purpose AI models under a tiered risk framework, could apply to Cowork if it is deployed in high-risk contexts such as employment decisions. UK businesses adopting the tool will need to consider data protection obligations under the UK GDPR, particularly when the agent processes personal data from emails or documents across multiple devices.