An AI coworker on your desktop: Claude Cowork, first look

Anthropic just released Claude Cowork in research preview — a desktop app where Claude works on real tasks with access to a folder you choose, in the background, while you do something else.

The difference from chat is delegation. Instead of pasting text into a window, you point it at a folder and say: "Sort these 300 receipts by month and total them by category," come back in twenty minutes, and check the result.

Sensible first experiments:

• A messy downloads or scans folder → organized and indexed
• A pile of meeting notes → one clean summary with action items
• Ten supplier PDFs → a comparison table

It's a preview — expect rough edges, give it copies rather than originals, and review what it did. But the direction is unmistakable: AI is becoming a coworker with hands, not just a voice that answers questions.