- 23
- February
If Claude Code is the AI Agent for developers that works through the Terminal, then Cowork is the AI Agent for everyone that works through Claude Desktop — no coding required, not even a single line. Anthropic officially launched Cowork on 12 January 2026, calling it "Claude Code for general tasks." This represents a significant milestone in making AI Agents accessible to professionals across all disciplines.
What Is Cowork?
Cowork is an AI Agent that operates autonomously on the Claude Desktop application. It is not just a chatbot that answers questions — it is an AI that can actually perform real tasks on your computer, from reading files, creating documents, editing files, to running automated scripts.
Unlike the standard Claude that can only "chat" within a conversation window, Cowork can access real files and folders on your machine — reading, writing, creating, and deleting files. It is more like "delegating work to a colleague" than "asking an AI questions."
What makes this particularly interesting is that Cowork was built by Boris Cherny, the same person who created Claude Code, and it took only 1.5 weeks to develop. Even more remarkable, most of Cowork's code was written by Claude Code itself — making it a case of AI building AI.
Cowork Launch Timeline
Anthropic gradually rolled out Cowork to different user groups in sequence:
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 12 Jan 2026 | Research Preview launched for Max subscribers (macOS only) |
| 16 Jan 2026 | Expanded to Pro subscribers |
| 23 Jan 2026 | Made available for Team and Enterprise plans |
| 30 Jan 2026 | 11 official open-source plugins released |
| 10 Feb 2026 | Windows version launched |
Key Features of Cowork
Cowork's capabilities go several steps beyond a typical chatbot:
1. Access Real Files and Folders on Your Machine
You can grant Claude access to specific folders only, such as Documents, Downloads, or a particular project folder. Claude will read all the files within and carry out tasks as instructed.
2. Create/Edit/Delete Real Files
This is not just showing output in a chat window — Cowork can create Excel files with working formulas, build PowerPoint presentations with charts, edit Word documents, or even rename and move files within folders.
3. Run Scripts and Code in a Sandbox VM
Cowork can actually execute code inside a Virtual Machine (VM) that is isolated from your main system, keeping things safe and preventing any impact on your computer. This is ideal for Data Analysis or Automation tasks.
4. Queue Multiple Tasks Simultaneously
You can assign multiple tasks at once and let Cowork process them in sequence. For example, "Organize my Downloads folder, then summarize this month's expenses from receipts" — without having to wait for each task individually.
5. Global & Folder-specific Instructions
You can set persistent instructions that Cowork remembers across sessions. For example, "When creating Excel files, always use the TH Sarabun font" or "In the Projects folder, use English for all file names."
6. Plugin System (11 Official Plugins)
Anthropic released 11 open-source plugins enabling Cowork to handle specialized tasks:
- Sales — Analyze CRM data, generate proposals
- Legal — Review contracts, draft legal documents
- Finance — Analyze financial statements, generate reports
- Marketing — Create content, analyze campaigns
- Data Analysis — Analyze data, create charts
- Support — Manage tickets, summarize issues
- Product — Manage backlog, create specs
- Enterprise Search — Search data across systems
- Biology Research — Analyze biology research papers
- Plugin Creation — Build new plugins from scratch
- General Productivity — General tasks, note-taking, work summaries
7. MCP Connectors
Cowork connects to external tools via Model Context Protocol (MCP), including: Slack, Canva, Figma, Box, Asana, Notion, PayPal, Salesforce, and HubSpot. It also supports Chrome Automation for automated web browser control.
Cowork vs Standard Claude Chat
To clearly illustrate how Cowork differs from the everyday Claude you already use:
| Capability | Claude Chat | Cowork |
|---|---|---|
| Generate text/code in chat | Yes | Yes |
| Access files on your machine | No (upload one file at a time only) | Yes (entire folders) |
| Create/edit/delete real files | No | Yes |
| Perform multi-step automation | No | Yes |
| Run scripts/code | No (displays code only) | Yes (in VM) |
| Connect to Slack/Notion/etc | Limited | Yes (via MCP) |
| Queue parallel tasks | No | Yes |
| Remember instructions across sessions | No | Yes |
Example Tasks Cowork Can Handle
To illustrate how Cowork can help with real work, here are examples of tasks that everyday users can ask Cowork to perform immediately:
Organize Your Downloads Folder
Tell Cowork "Organize my Downloads folder by file type and rename files to be more readable" — Cowork will scan all files, create subfolders (Documents, Images, Videos, Others), then move files into them while renaming them with meaningful names.
Create a Spreadsheet of Expenses from Receipt Photos
Take photos of receipts and place them in a folder. Tell Cowork "Create an Excel summary of expenses from all receipts in this folder" — Cowork will read text from the images (OCR), extract line items, amounts, and dates, then create an Excel file with formulas that automatically total everything up.
Draft a Report from Notes Scattered Across Multiple Files
If you have meeting notes scattered across 10 different files, tell Cowork "Compile all meeting notes and create a summary report in Word" — Cowork will read every file, summarize the key points, and create a well-structured report document.
Extract Action Items from Meeting Notes
Tell Cowork "Read today's meeting notes and extract Action Items with responsible parties and deadlines" — Cowork will pull out the Action Items and create a checklist ready to share with the team.
Create Excel/PowerPoint with Working Formulas
This goes beyond just showing examples in a chat window — Cowork creates Excel files with VLOOKUP, SUMIFS, and Pivot Tables that actually work, or PowerPoint presentations with charts built from real data in your files.
Pricing and Plans
Cowork is not available for free — you need at least a Pro plan subscription, and it must be used through the Claude Desktop app only (not available on Web or Mobile):
| Plan | Price/Month | Cowork Access? |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | No |
| Pro | $20 | Yes |
| Max 5x | $100 | Yes (higher usage) |
| Max 20x | $200 | Yes (highest usage) |
| Team | $25/seat | Yes |
| Enterprise | Custom | Yes + ZDR |
Note: Cowork consumes significantly more tokens than regular chat, since it must read files, analyze content, and create documents. Pro plan users may hit usage limits faster than usual. The Max plan is recommended for heavy users.
Cowork Security
Since Cowork can access real files on your machine, security is a critical consideration:
Protective Measures
- Sandbox VM — Cowork runs inside a Virtual Machine (Apple VZVirtualMachine on macOS), isolated from your main system
- Virtualization-level Isolation — Claude can only see the folders you explicitly grant access to; it cannot access any other files on your machine
- Permission System — Every write/delete operation requires user approval. Claude displays what it intends to do and waits for your confirmation
- Enterprise ZDR — Enterprise plans include Zero Data Retention (ZDR), meaning your data is not stored on Anthropic's servers
Security Limitations
Caution:
- File contents are sent to Anthropic servers — Files you grant Cowork access to are sent to Anthropic's cloud for processing; they are not processed locally on your machine
- Prompt Injection — PromptArmor disclosed a vulnerability where .docx files may contain hidden instructions, causing Cowork to follow commands embedded in the document rather than the user's own instructions (Anthropic is addressing this)
- Not suitable for regulated workloads — Audit logs and Compliance APIs for legally mandated auditing are not yet available
Use Cases for Thai Organizations
While Cowork is primarily a personal productivity tool, Thai organizations can leverage it to boost efficiency across multiple departments:
Finance and Accounting
Create expense reports from receipts, analyze financial statements with quarter-over-quarter comparisons, build revenue-expense dashboards from Excel files exported from ERP systems using the Finance Plugin.
Legal and Contracts
Review contracts against standard templates, draft preliminary legal documents, summarize key contract terms for executives using the Legal Plugin.
Sales
Analyze CRM data, auto-generate proposals from templates, create weekly sales summary reports using the Sales Plugin.
Marketing
Create content calendars, analyze campaign results from exported data, draft copy for various media channels using the Marketing Plugin.
HR
Organize employee documents, prepare onboarding materials, summarize attendance reports from spreadsheets.
Research Findings: Data from organizations using Cowork during the Research Preview period shows it can save 20-30% of time on document work, data entry, and basic data analysis tasks.
Saeree ERP and Cowork
Note: Currently, Saeree ERP does not have built-in AI features, but they are planned for the near future.
However, organizations using Saeree ERP can use Cowork as a complementary tool:
- Export reports from ERP (Excel, CSV) → Let Cowork analyze and create executive summaries
- Financial statements → Let Cowork compare figures across months and build automated dashboards
- Inventory data → Let Cowork analyze stock movements and flag items that need reordering
- HR data → Let Cowork summarize attendance reports and leave balances
Caution:
- Data that Cowork reads will be sent to Anthropic servers for processing
- Data containing personal information of customers/employees should be anonymized before sharing with Cowork
- For sensitive business data, use the Enterprise Plan with Zero Data Retention (ZDR)
Conclusion
Cowork is a significant milestone that makes AI Agents accessible to everyone — you do not need to be a developer or have technical expertise. Through the familiar Claude Desktop interface, Cowork lets you delegate document work, data analysis, and automation tasks to AI in a meaningful way — going far beyond just copying and pasting from a chat window.
That said, Cowork is still in Research Preview status, which means there are still occasional bugs, and features may change in the future. Users should always review Cowork's output, especially for tasks with significant business impact.
A great AI Agent is not one that does everything for you — it is one that works alongside you seamlessly, like a skilled, diligent colleague who is always ready to help. Cowork is the first step toward making that vision a reality.
- Saeree ERP Development Team
If your organization needs an ERP system that manages data systematically and is ready to integrate AI enhancements in the future, you can schedule a demo or contact our consulting team to learn more.
