Hands On With Anthropic’s Claude Cowork, an AI Agent That Actually Works
As a software reporter at WIRED, I’ve tested a lot of shitty agents over the past couple of years. These experiences expose a consistent pattern of generative AI startups overpromising and underdelivering when it comes to these “agentic” helpers—programs designed to take control of your computer, performing chores and digital errands to free up your time for more important things. But the bots I installed on my laptop would struggle to complete even basic tasks. They just didn’t work.
This poor track record makes Anthropic’s latest agent, Claude Cowork, a nice surprise. When I tested it by running it through some basic and intermediate demos the company suggested in addition to my own commands, it worked fairly well—especially for software that’s still in beta. It can do things like organize files into folders, convert file types, generate reports, and even take over the browser to search the web or tidy up a Gmail inbox. When it comes to file management and computer interfaces, this tool feels like the start of a pleasant user experience evolution.
Last year, Anthropic nurtured a cult following for its Claude Code tool among developers who loved its ability to understand codebases and run commands, with tech staffers across San Francisco using it for their work seemingly all the time. But most people aren’t members of some buzzy startup’s technical staff.
“We tried a bunch of different ideas to see what form factor would make sense for a less technical audience that doesn't want to use a terminal,” says Boris Cherny, Anthropic’s head of Claude Code. For the past two months, Cherny has written all of his code with AI. Cowork was built using AI tools.
Released by Anthropic earlier this week as a research preview, Cowork takes the abilities available in the company’s coding focused tool and makes the user experience more approachable. This tool is designed for the wider group of nontechnical users, who may want to experiment with a new way of controlling their com
Source: Wired
