If you ever wanted to offload some everyday tasks to AI, Anthropic’s Claude can now lend you a hand. Claude can now perform tasks on your behalf, such as sending a file from your computer to your phone or batch-resizing a stack of photos. There’s no setup — it just works, as long as you’re on the right subscription plan.

In the wake of OpenClaw becoming a viral sensation, Anthropic is stepping in with a tool that allows Claude to act more independently and handle more tasks on your behalf. This follows shortly after Nvidia announced its own reference stack, NemoClaw, designed to bring AI agents to users in a safer and more secure way.

Alex Albert, head of developer relations at Anthropic, said in an X post, “The future where I never have to open up my laptop to get work done is becoming real very fast,” in regards to the new feature. 

Anthropic says that Claude will look for the right tools to complete the task at hand via connectors with apps such as Google Calendar or Slack. If the tool or connector isn’t available, Claude can manually perform the task by typing or moving the cursor, as if it were using the keyboard and mouse. It can use programs including your web browser, dev tools and open files, too.

When it’s performing these tasks, it can use a computer as you normally would (think scrolling and clicking around). The only difference is that Claude will always ask for permission beforehand. You can stop Claude from performing a task at any time.

Giving your chatbot the keys to your computer can be convenient for certain tasks, but it can leave your computer vulnerable to attacks. Experts told us one major worry with agentic AI is that it can take major, sometimes dramatic actions quickly — and with little warning. Claws can also be hijacked by malicious actors, who can use your personal data and systems in ways you don’t want. 

Anthropic says it implemented safeguards to minimize risks, such as prompt injections. The system will automatically scan for this and more vulnerabilities as they’re implemented.  

Despite some of its efforts to keep Claude’s computer use safe, Anthropic also provides a warning to users. The feature is new and may contain errors, and the company suggests not using apps that handle sensitive data —  so much so that some of these apps are disabled by default.

The research preview is available now for Claude Pro and Claude Max subscribers and limited to computers running MacOS.

Anthropic says the new computer-use feature works well with Dispatch, which allows you to assign tasks to Claude using your phone. Such tasks include checking your email every morning or opening up a Claude Cowork or Claude Code session. 

The combination of computer use for Claude and Dispatch enables you to do even more while you’re not even around. Anthropic says the feature combo can create a morning briefing or run tests, for example. 

Both features are new, so some complex tasks might not work the first time. Anthropic said it’s releasing this research preview to gain early insight on where it needs the most attention to become an even more powerful tool.