Claude Duet: who can get Anthropic’s new agent, and what it costs

What Claude Duet is

Anthropic opened a research preview of Claude Duet on October 21, 2026, calling it “a new app where Claude works as a proactive agent.” Anthropic’s announcement aims it at “professionals and small business owners with more on their plates than they can track.”

It does three things a chat doesn’t:

• It comes to you first. Each morning it sends a short brief on the most important items in your connected apps, and through the day it messages you “only when something needs your attention.” It checks your connected accounts every few hours rather than all the time.
• It works while you’re away. Duet has its own computer in the cloud, with its own browser, so a task carries on after you close the app, with your laptop and phone off. You get a notification when it’s done or needs you.
• It asks before it acts. Before it sends a message, makes a payment, signs a document or deletes anything, it shows you what it’s about to do and waits. Some things are off-limits even with your approval, such as trading securities or moving money between accounts.

It runs on Claude Opus 5.5, starts with the memory, skills and connected apps already on your Claude account, and can use the more than 6,000 connectors and plugins in the Claude Marketplace. It’s a separate app for iPhone and Android, and it’s on claude.ai.

Who can get it

Anthropic’s help article lists three requirements: a Pro or Max plan, a Claude account in the US, and an invitation from the waitlist.

Claude plan	Price	Claude Duet
Free	$0	No
Pro	$20 a month, or $17 a month billed yearly	By waitlist, US only
Max 5x and Max 20x	From $100 a month	By waitlist, US only
Team and Enterprise	Per seat	Not yet

Prices are from Claude’s pricing page. For Team and Enterprise, Anthropic says “we plan to bring it to those plans later,” with no date. Invitations go out in waves, and joining the waitlist “doesn’t guarantee a specific date.”

To join:

1. Open the Claude Duet page and fill in the waitlist form.
2. Give the email address on your Claude account. Access is tied to it.
3. Choose your plan and your phone, iPhone or Android, and submit.
4. When the invitation arrives, open it on your phone, signed in to the Apple or Google account that uses the same email, and sign in to Duet with your Claude account.

A mismatched email is one of the reasons Anthropic gives for not having access, so check it before you submit.

What it costs, and what it does to your limits

During the research preview, Duet is “included with the Pro and Max plans at no extra cost.” Anthropic hasn’t said whether that changes after the preview.

It isn’t free of usage, though. Duet uses your plan’s five-hour and weekly limits “at the same rate as chats in Claude,” and the work it does without being asked counts too: the morning brief, the check-ins, and the extra model turns behind a big job like a financial model or a deck. Anthropic says it checks your accounts every few hours “because checking nonstop would use up your plan’s limits much faster.”

Those are the same limits Claude Code and the Claude app draw on. Anthropic’s article on limit resets says your usage limits “are shared across your Claude account.” If you already reach your five-hour limit in Claude Code on Pro, expect to reach it sooner with Duet running.

There is one consolation. When you’re admitted, you get one full limit reset, which refills both the five-hour and weekly limits and is available until November 30, 2026. Resets are used from Settings > Usage on the web or in Claude Desktop, not in Claude Mobile or Claude Code, and can’t be undone. This one is separate from the reset paid plans got at Opus 5.5’s launch, which Anthropic’s ClaudeDevs account said could be used “any time until Oct 22.” It ended that day.

What it can’t do yet

Anthropic lists these limits for the preview:

• You can’t choose a model. It runs on Opus 5.5 and decides how much effort a job needs.
• You can’t watch it work in its browser, or take the browser over.
• It checks your accounts at set intervals, so something urgent can arrive between checks.
• It can’t see the files on your computer, and it can read your work in Claude but not change it.
• It doesn’t phone or text other people. It can send email from your connected accounts, with your approval.
• Some connectors, such as Slack, work with limits, and Microsoft 365 isn’t available yet.

It can also misread a thread or misjudge what’s urgent, and Anthropic says personal errands, such as booking tickets, “aren’t quite as strong.”

How it compares with ChatGPT’s dots

The Verge and Engadget framed Duet as Anthropic’s answer to Meta’s Muse and OpenAI’s dots. Dots are the closest match: always-on agents in ChatGPT, each with its own cloud computer.

	Claude Duet	ChatGPT dots
Who can get it	Claude Pro and Max, US only, by waitlist	ChatGPT Pro outside the EEA, Switzerland and the UK; Business Premium; an Enterprise beta
Model	Claude Opus 5.5	GPT-6 Astra
Works on	Its own cloud computer	Its own cloud computer, and yours if you allow it
Usage	Your plan’s limits, background work included	An allowance in your plan, with extended limits for the first month
Where you use it	Its own app, and claude.ai	ChatGPT’s mobile and desktop apps, and the web on a desktop

OpenAI’s details are from its help article on dots. The plan is the biggest difference: Duet comes with Claude’s $20 Pro plan, while dots need ChatGPT Pro, which Engadget notes starts at $100 a month.

If you want an agent on a schedule today

Duet is built for inboxes, calendars and business apps, and you have to wait for an invitation. If the work you’d hand off lives in your projects, such as code, docs or a website, you can schedule it now. Enjoy saves a prompt as a workflow and runs it on a schedule, every weekday at 8:00 AM or whenever you set, with Claude Code on the Claude plan you already have, or with Codex, Antigravity or a local model through OpenCode.

It differs from Duet where it matters. Enjoy works on your computer, so its agents can use the files Duet can’t see, but scheduled work runs only while the computer is awake and Enjoy is open. Duet keeps going with everything switched off. And Claude Code in Enjoy draws on the same Claude limits as Duet: when they run out, the conversation waits for the reset and carries on, or you move it to another Claude account you’ve signed in, in one click. Enjoy itself is free.

We’ll update this memo when Anthropic opens Duet to more plans or countries, or says what it costs after the preview.