What is Claude Cowork?

Claude Cowork is an AI agent developed by Anthropic and built into the Claude app. Rather than just answering a question in a conversation, it carries out complete multi-step tasks: accessing files, browsing the web and producing deliverables.

What types of files can Claude Cowork read, create, edit and analyse?

Once a folder is connected, Claude Cowork reads, creates and edits text files, Excel spreadsheets, presentations and other common office formats. Access stays limited to the folders the user or administrator has explicitly authorised.

Can administrators control access to Claude Cowork?

Yes. On the Team and Enterprise plans, an administrator decides who can open a Cowork session and on which folders, with per-group spending limits added at general availability on 9 April 2026.

Do you need a paid subscription to use Claude Cowork?

Yes. Claude Cowork is reserved for Anthropic's paid Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans, and no detailed price list is published for each tier. Available usage grows from one plan to the next, with the team tiers adding the administration features needed to roll it out across a team.

Can Claude Cowork be used to send LinkedIn messages automatically?

That is not a use Anthropic intends. Automating LinkedIn messages falls outside Claude Cowork's scope and puts the account at risk of being blocked, because the third-party platform's terms of use apply regardless of the agent used.

What is the environmental impact of Claude Cowork?

A Cowork session uses more quota than a standard conversational exchange, especially in auto-approval mode on long tasks. To date, Anthropic has not published any Cowork-specific figures on its environmental footprint.

Claude Cowork: capabilities, limits and how to manage it in the enterprise

Q: What is the difference between Claude Cowork and Chat?

Claude Chat answers a request on the spot, one reply per exchange. Claude Cowork opens a session, builds an action plan and carries it out over several steps before delivering a result, with broader autonomy over the length of a full session.

Q: What is the difference between Claude Cowork and Claude Code?

Claude Code is built for developers who write and fix code. Claude Cowork targets non-technical office tasks: reports, files, presentations. According to Anthropic, more than 90% of Cowork usage has nothing to do with software development.

Claude Cowork, the office agent that carries out your tasks for you

Claude Cowork has had its own browser since 26 August 2026. This Anthropic agent no longer just answers in a conversation: it opens a folder on the user's computer, carries out a task in several actions and delivers a concrete result for the business. Claude Cowork changes the nature of the work you hand to an artificial intelligence tool. This guide explains how it works, where its limits lie and, above all, what no article on the subject covers yet: how to measure real usage of this agent once it is deployed in a team.

Understanding Claude Cowork: definition, how it works and how it compares with Claude Chat and Claude Code

A simple definition: the office agent built into Claude

Claude Cowork is a feature of the Claude app that turns the conversational assistant into an agent able to act directly on an organisation's files and on-screen documents. In practice, the tool accesses a working folder through an authorised connector, follows a task plan and works in the background to produce a usable result, with no prior technical training needed for a non-developer user in the company. Each task given to the agent stays tied to a specific folder, on the computer or through a connected application. Anthropic builds Claude Cowork on the same technical foundations as Claude Code, with capabilities called skills, a connector system and controlled access to the information needed to extend what the agent can do at the office. It is this agentic architecture, designed for companies and their teams, that sets Cowork apart from a simple chat that can write a text on request.

What is the difference between Claude Cowork and Claude Chat?

Claude Chat answers a question in a conversation. Claude Cowork carries out a task end to end through a series of actions. Where the chat waits for a new instruction after each reply, Cowork opens a session, acts on files or a website, then comes back with a deliverable ready to approve. The shift is about control: the chat keeps the user in the loop at every step, while Cowork acts with broader autonomy over the length of a session. On the settings side, Cowork logs each step in a tracking note you can review afterwards, something a simple email exchange does not allow.

What is the difference between Claude Cowork and Claude Code?

Claude Code remains the developers' tool, designed for writing and fixing code in a terminal or development environment. Claude Cowork aims at the opposite: office tasks that do not involve programming languages, such as writing reports, sorting files and preparing presentations. More than 90% of Claude Cowork usage has nothing to do with software development, according to figures shared by Anthropic (Blog du Modérateur, 2026). The two products share the same agentic engine, but Cowork is aimed at people who do not code, whereas the architecture of a Claude Code harness remains tailored to engineering.