Claude Duet, now in a research preview, is Anthropic’s new app in which Claude works as a proactive agent for professionals and small business owners. Access is by waitlist, starting with Pro and Max subscribers in the U.S., and the app runs on iOS, Android and claude.ai.
Anthropic said Duet is powered by Claude Opus 5.5. Each morning the app sends a short brief on the most important items across a user’s connected apps, then checks those accounts every few hours and sends a message only when something needs attention. The company said it doesn’t check nonstop because that would use up a plan’s limits much faster. Tasks run on a virtual machine with its own browser, so the user’s laptop or phone doesn’t have to stay on.
Anthropic said the agent can use more than 6,000 connectors and plugins in the Claude Marketplace, and its examples include checking Intuit QuickBooks or Stripe for unpaid invoices and drafting reminders, preparing and running payroll in Gusto, drafting follow-up emails from HubSpot contact and deal history, sending agreements for signature through Docusign and setting up a Shopify store.
Duet reads, drafts and prepares work on its own. Before it sends a message, makes a payment, signs a document or deletes anything, Anthropic said, it “shows you exactly what it’s about to do and waits for your approval.” Trading securities and moving money between accounts are off-limits even with approval. A new classifier is designed to reject requests to share credit card numbers and government identification, and other sensitive information, such as health or personal finances, goes out only when the user has explicitly told Duet to send it.
Stripe published a companion announcement the same day. Purchases run through Link, Stripe’s digital wallet: Duet confirms the item, Link asks the user to approve the spend, and payment goes out on a virtual card so the real card number isn’t shared. Through Stripe MCP, users can send invoices and payment links, analyze revenue and issue refunds without leaving the app. “Building Claude Duet’s purchases on Link keeps people in charge of every dollar,” Rahul Patil, Anthropic’s chief technology officer, said in Stripe’s release. Earlier on Oct. 21, Stripe also opened its Treasury accounts to AI agents.
The Verge described Duet as an AI agent competitor to Meta’s Muse and OpenAI’s Dots, and Stripe said Link already powers payments for more than 200 personal agents, Muse among them. Anthropic’s announcement features early testers such as Amin Ebrahimi, who owns Shahs of Kabob in South Florida with about 110 employees and has used Duet for accounting, customer support and marketing. “I don’t need to open up 100 tabs,” he said, according to Anthropic.
Duet shares a subscriber’s usage limits with the rest of Claude, its background checks count toward those limits, and larger jobs such as building a financial model or a deck take more model turns. Anthropic said this early version “still might misread a thread or miscalibrate what’s urgent,” and that it will share more details about how Duet is designed for safety in the coming days.