Anthropic joins artificial intelligence agent race with Claude Duet

SAN FRANCISCO — Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company behind the Claude chatbot, introduced an AI agent on Wednesday that acts as a personal digital assistant.

Called Claude Duet, the tool is in an early test phase but joins a fast-growing field of AI assistants that take actions and perform tasks on their own. It will compete with OpenAI’s dots, which debuted last month; Meta’s Muse; Google’s Gemini Spark; and agents from the startup Instinct, which raised US$1 billion in its latest funding round.

Unlike OpenAI and Meta, which have pitched their agents as assistants for everyday tasks like booking reservations, Anthropic said Claude Duet was built for work and was less capable at personal errands.

Claude Duet is Anthropic’s most direct attempt to move its chatbot from answering questions to running parts of people’s working lives. Rather than waiting for instructions, it sends users a morning briefing drawn from their email, calendar and business software, then checks those accounts every few hours and reaches out when something seems to need attention, according to the company’s announcement.

Anthropic said Claude Duet can connect to more than 6,000 outside apps, including Canva and DocuSign. It can also make purchases through Link, Stripe’s digital wallet or Shopify’s Shop Pay, though users must approve each purchase.

Anthropic, which has built its brand around AI safety, said Claude Duet would show users exactly what it planned to do before sending a message or making a payment.

Some actions, like trading stocks or moving money between accounts, are blocked even with a user’s approval. A new filter is also meant to keep the agent from sharing credit card numbers or government ID numbers.

— New York Times