Claude Cowork

Cowork lets Claude work independently and agentically on your computer or in the cloud. You describe the result you want, and Claude plans and carries it out: searches through files, analyzes documents, builds presentations and Excel files, navigates programs and hands back finished work.

When should you use Cowork

The rule of thumb is that if you need to produce files, presentations, Excel analyses, documents or anything similar, Cowork is the better place to do it. Use it for longer analyses across several files too, since you get more context to work with when everything doesn't have to live in the chat but can sit on your machine. For multi-step tasks, Cowork is again the way to go.

Dispatch: a genuinely practical feature

With Dispatch you can start Cowork tasks from your phone. Say you are on your way to a meeting, you can send: "find all 2026 contracts in the Documents folder and give me a summary of the deadlines." Claude searches through the files and has a report ready by the time you arrive. It does require that you set things up properly before you pull out your phone, and that your computer is switched on if Claude is meant to work in your local files.

How Cowork works

Claude works directly in a folder on your computer. It can read, create and edit files locally, so results land exactly where you need them. For other tools it connects through integrations (Connectors) where they exist. When there is no direct integration, it uses Computer Use: taking control of the screen to click, scroll and navigate.

Cowork burns noticeably more tokens than regular chat, which eats into your usage, especially on the more agentic tasks. It is usually worth it. This is where Cowork really shines.