Claude Cowork is Anthropic's agentic AI desktop assistant integrated into the Claude Desktop app. It operates as an autonomous digital agent capable of reading, editing, creating, and organizing files directly on your computer within sandboxed, user-approved folders. Unlike traditional chatbots that require constant re-briefing, Cowork maintains persistent threads for longer, multi-step workflows, preserving context across sessions. Users can grant Claude access to designated directories, and the agent will plan and execute complex tasks autonomously, including file organization, data extraction, expense report generation, research synthesis, and document creation. In March 2026, Anthropic introduced Projects, a feature that keeps files, instructions, and task context organized inside a single workspace, allowing paid users to start from scratch, import existing chats, or connect local folders so Claude can continue work without losing thread context. On March 17, 2026, Anthropic launched Claude Dispatch as a research preview, enabling a phone-to-desktop workflow where users can initiate, monitor, and control AI tasks on their local computers from the Claude iOS or Android app. For example, a user can send a prompt such as 'Organize my Q1 tax receipts on my Mac' from their phone, and the desktop agent will execute the task locally. Cowork supports real-time progress tracking, OCR-enabled data extraction from images, and maintains consistent tone and brand guidelines across batches of work. The feature is available on Mac and Windows x64 through the Claude Desktop app, requiring a Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise subscription.