Anthropic Expands Claude Cowork to Mobile and Web, Usage Data Shows Business Tasks Dominate

Quick Facts

Anthropic launched Claude Cowork on mobile and web on July 7, starting in beta for Max subscribers at $100 per month.
A sample of 1.2 million anonymized Cowork sessions showed business process and content creation account for 50% of usage; software development accounts for just 8.7%.
Cowork can now run tasks autonomously in the background with no device online, and syncs progress across desktop, web, and mobile.

Anthropic on Tuesday expanded Claude Cowork to mobile and web, turning a desktop-only tool into a cross-device platform where tasks run autonomously and users can review results from a phone.

The rollout starts in beta for Claude Max subscribers and will expand to Pro and free tiers over the next several weeks, the company said. No firm date was given for that expansion.

What the Usage Data Shows

Anthropic sampled 1.2 million anonymized Cowork sessions from May 11 to May 31, 2026, across more than 600,000 organizations. Business process and operations was the top category at 33.4%, followed by content creation and copywriting at 16.4%.

Software development came in at 8.7%. DevOps and infrastructure followed at 7%, with research and intelligence at 6.4% and data analysis at 5.8%. Over 90% of Cowork activity involves everyday business work.

Anthropic described the dominant use cases as “the work around the work” — tasks that span nearly every role but rarely appear in anyone’s core job description. Even developers, the data shows, tend to use Cowork for status updates, documentation, and coordination rather than programming.

New Capabilities

The mobile and web expansion adds three features. Sessions now sync across devices, so a task started on a laptop can be monitored and retrieved from a phone. Cowork can also execute tasks in the background with no device online at all, allowing users to schedule work for a specific time and collect the output later.

When Claude encounters a decision requiring human input, it sends the question directly to the user’s phone. Anthropic offered a concrete example: setting a 6 a.m. Monday client prep task, where Claude reviews email threads, transcripts, and recent news, builds a briefing document, and drafts a follow-up email for review before the workday begins.

Anthropic also merged the standard chat interface and Cowork into a single home tab on desktop and web. Switching between conversational and agentic modes no longer requires separate apps.

The desktop app remains the only option for features tied to local machines, including file system access, browser control through Chrome, and Computer Use, where Claude navigates directly on screen.

Pricing and Market Position

Access to Cowork is currently limited to Claude Max at $100 per month. That is a wide gap against ChatGPT Teams at $25 per user per month and Claude’s own Pro tier at $20 per month. To encourage adoption, Anthropic is extending doubled Cowork usage limits through August 5.

The launch reflects a deliberate two-track strategy. Claude Code serves software developers. Cowork targets knowledge workers whose jobs center on creating, organizing, and communicating information.

That addressable market is far larger. The Ramp AI Index published in May showed Anthropic pulling ahead of OpenAI in business adoption for the first time, with 34.4% of firms paying for Anthropic services compared to OpenAI’s 32.3%. Claude Code was the primary driver of that shift. Cowork points at the broader population of workers with laptops, spreadsheets, and slide decks.

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