AI Cowork Goes Mobile: Work Follows You Everywhere

Anthropic has expanded its AI tool, Claude Cowork, to mobile and web, enabling users to access and sync tasks across all their devices. This cross-device platform allows work to begin on a laptop and continue autonomously, with progress reviewable from a phone, even after closing the app. The tool is rolling out in beta for Max subscribers.

Recent usage data from over 1.2 million anonymized Claude Cowork sessions revealed that non-coding tasks dominate its application. Business process and operations accounted for 33.4% of usage, while content creation and copywriting made up 16.4%. Software development represented only 8.7% of sessions.

This strategic move aims to capture the much larger market of knowledge workers, defining "the work around the work" as crucial for business operations. By handling tasks like report generation and slide deck creation, Anthropic positions Cowork as essential for professionals across various roles.

The expansion includes background task execution, allowing scheduled work without constant online presence, and prompts for human review on decisions. While desktop retains full features, the web version broadens access in enterprise environments. Anthropic also unified its chat and Cowork interfaces.

This initiative aligns with Anthropic's two-track strategy, differentiating Claude Code for developers and Cowork for general professionals. The company recently released Claude Sonnet 5, enhancing agentic capabilities for Cowork, and Claude Tag, a multiplayer Slack AI agent for team collaboration.

Recent security research by Armadin detailed a sandbox escape vulnerability in Claude Cowork on Windows, though Anthropic stated it requires pre-existing local execution. The shift to server-side processing for web and mobile versions addresses this specific concern but raises new questions about data handling for autonomous background tasks.

Geopolitical factors also impact Anthropic's enterprise push, with Alibaba banning its AI tools due to alleged distillation attacks. This, alongside efforts to close loopholes for Chinese access, highlights the complex environment for global AI companies navigating U.S. restrictions. Simultaneously, Anthropic is investing heavily in infrastructure, signing a $19 billion lease for a Kentucky data center.

Anthropic's usage analysis acknowledges blind spots, such as the lack of specific categories for finance or marketing, which are likely absorbed into "business process and operations." The data also represents shares of sampled sessions, not absolute volumes, and includes some non-work usage. The analysis window begins May 11 due to a labeling pipeline change.

The rise of Cowork suggests a future where enterprise AI proves value not just in core development but in universal tasks. By making AI accessible across devices for handling information structuring, Anthropic bets on agents managing connective tasks being more valuable than code-writing ones.