Anthropic released Claude Cowork as a research preview: a computer agent that takes the machinery behind the terminal-based Claude Code and puts it into the Claude desktop app for knowledge workers who don't write code. Given instructions in plain language, it works through multi-step tasks in the background against the user's own files, folders, and applications, reporting progress as it goes. It launched on the macOS desktop app for subscribers to the Max plan, priced between $100 and $200 a month. Extending the agent pattern proven in coding to ordinary office work, it set the terms for the general-purpose agent race that followed.