(Corrects paragraph 1 in Oct 21 story to "Wednesday" from "Thursday")
Oct 21 (Reuters) - Anthropic on Wednesday unveiled Claude Duet, a standalone AI agent app designed to act as a proactive assistant for professionals and small-business owners, as rivals such as OpenAI and Meta race to develop AI agents that can complete work autonomously on users' behalf.
• Duet delivers a daily briefing and handles tasks ranging from scheduling meetings to building financial forecasts and web apps, Anthropic said
• Available on iOS, Android and claude.ai through a waitlisted research preview, it monitors users' connected apps and surfaces items requiring attention rather than waiting for prompts
• Duet is built around Anthropic's Opus 5.5 model and is initially available to US subscribers on Pro and Max plans, sharing existing usage limits
• OpenAI last month launched always-on "dots" agents that pursue user goals across apps such as Slack and Microsoft Teams, while Meta's Muse AI agent drew millions of downloads and fueled investor interest in autonomous AI services
• Duet integrates with over 6,000 connectors in the Claude Marketplace, including Gmail and Slack, and can make purchases via Stripe's Link digital wallet and Shopify's Shop Pay
• The AI lab said Claude Duet requires user approval for sensitive actions, while acknowledging the agent can misjudge urgency and remains less effective at personal tasks such as booking tickets
(Reporting by Anhata Rooprai in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas)
