Hi, it's Ivo. On October 21, 2026, Anthropic opened a research preview of Claude Duet, an app where Claude works as a proactive agent: it comes to you with what needs your attention. Here is what it is, where its limits are, and what you can do today while you wait for access.
1. What Duet does
- A morning brief. Each morning it sends you a short brief on the most important items across your connected apps.
- It checks in every few hours. It looks at your connected accounts every few hours and messages you only when something needs your attention. You can tell it what you want to hear about and how often.
- One thread. You talk to it by typing or by voice, in one ongoing thread.
- Its own computer. It has a virtual machine with its own browser, so your laptop or phone doesn't need to be on while it works.
- Built on Opus 5.5. Anthropic built it for professionals and small business owners.
- Over 6,000 connectors and plugins from the Claude Marketplace, for example Gmail, Slack, QuickBooks, Stripe, Gusto, LinkedIn, Docusign, HubSpot, Canva and Shopify.
- It carries over your setup. Your memory, skills and connected apps from your Claude account come with you.
2. What it won't do
- It won't act without you on the big things. Before it sends a message, makes a payment, signs a document or deletes anything, it shows you exactly what it's about to do and waits for your approval.
- Some things are blocked even if you say yes: trading securities and moving money between accounts.
- It never directly sees your passwords or sign-in tokens.
- It rejects the most sensitive details, like credit card numbers and government ID numbers. Health or personal finance details go out only when you've told it to send them.
- It isn't perfect yet. Anthropic says it can still misread a thread or misjudge what's urgent, personal errands like booking tickets are weaker, and it can't show you its browser yet.
Who can get it: a waitlist, starting with Pro and Max subscribers in the US. It runs on iOS, Android and claude.ai, and it's included in Pro and Max. It uses the same usage limits as the rest of Claude, and its background checks count toward them.
3. What to connect first
Start with the two apps that hold your day: Gmail and Google Calendar.
- Open a chat in regular Claude (claude.ai or the app).
- Click the plus sign, then hover over "Connectors".
- Turn on Gmail and Google Calendar, then sign in with your Google account.
- To remove one later: Customize, then Connectors, open it and click "Disconnect".
Why these two: the questions you'll ask a proactive agent ("what needs me today?") are answered by your inbox and your calendar. And Duet carries over the apps you've connected in Claude, so you're set up when your invite arrives.
4. 3 morning-brief prompts you can use in regular Claude today
Regular Claude doesn't message you first. You ask, and it reads your connected Gmail and Calendar. Paste one of these each morning.
Prompt 1: The morning brief
Look at my Gmail from the last 24 hours and my Google Calendar for today. Give me a short morning summary: the 3 things that need me first, any meeting I need to prepare for, and the emails still waiting on my reply. Keep it under 10 lines. Don't send, change or delete anything.
Prompt 2: Draft the replies
From that brief, pick the 2 emails that need my reply the most. Write a short draft reply to each and show me the drafts here in the chat. Don't send anything. I'll edit and send them myself.
Prompt 3: The week ahead
Look at my Google Calendar for the next 7 days. Flag meetings that overlap, meetings back to back with no break, and invites with no agenda. Suggest one fix for each. Don't change anything in my calendar.
Three tips
- Keep "Don't send, change or delete anything" in the prompt. You stay the one who presses send.
- Check the dates and numbers in the brief before you act on them. AI can misread an email too.
- If a brief misses something, tell Claude what it missed. Then use the better version tomorrow.
Source: Anthropic, "Introducing Claude Duet", October 21, 2026: claude.com/resources/articles/claude-duet. Connecting Gmail and Calendar: Claude Help Center, "Use Google Workspace connectors": support.claude.com/en/articles/10166901.