How does Claude Duet work — and how do you stop a proactive AI agent from acting without your OK?

Anthropic’s Claude Duet, unveiled October 21, is a standalone proactive agent app built on Opus 5.5: it sends a morning briefing, checks your connected apps every few hours, works from its own cloud computer while your devices are off, and can even buy things — but it must ask your approval before it sends, pays, signs or deletes anything. Here is how to keep that control.

You are used to AI that waits politely for a question. Claude Duet starts working before you ask. Short answer: Duet is a standalone proactive agent app from Anthropic, unveiled October 21 and built on the Opus 5.5 model.

It is rolling out as a waitlisted research preview for U.S. Pro and Max subscribers on iOS, Android and claude.ai, and it shares your existing plan’s usage limits. Once set up, it sends you a morning briefing, re-checks your connected apps every few hours, alerts you when something needs attention, and keeps working on its own cloud computer even when your phone and laptop are off.

Why it matters: Duet connects to more than 6,000 apps through Claude Marketplace connectors — Gmail and Slack among them — and it can complete purchases through Stripe Link or Shop Pay. The safeguard that makes that reasonable to try is the approval gate: Duet must stop and ask before it sends a message, makes a payment, signs a document or deletes a file. Anthropic is candid about the weak spots, too — it can misjudge how urgent something really is, and it is noticeably weaker at personal tasks like booking tickets.1.

Join the waitlist. Open Claude on your phone or at claude.ai and sign up for the Duet research preview with a Pro or Max plan.2. Connect only the apps you need.

Every connector is another door into your accounts. Start with the two or three your morning brief genuinely needs, and leave the rest disconnected.3. Read the morning brief before approving anything.

Treat each approval request like a signature, not a notification to clear — and say no to anything you do not recognise.4. Audit connector permissions weekly. Open the connector list, remove apps that have stopped earning their place, and confirm nothing is connected that you do not remember approving.Pro tip: Duet’s background checks count toward your plan limits, just like chatting does.

The more apps it watches every few hours, the faster your allowance drains — keep the watch list short.Ad’s take: An agent that works while I sleep is only welcome if it knocks before it acts. The approval gate is the whole product, as far as I am concerned — use it, audit it, and Duet stays a helper instead of a loose cannon.