Anthropic Pulls Another Surprise Move Late at Night: The Coding AI Clears Your Desktop with One Click. Is the End for Office Workers Nigh?

[Introduction] Can a white - collar worker lose their job overnight? Anthropic has launched the powerful Cowork tool, which replicates the same underlying logic as Claude for coding, enabling AI to handle daily tasks for workers. What's more impactful is that it may spell the end for many startups.

Claude Code revolutionized the work of programmers at the beginning of the year, and now it's coming to disrupt the jobs of all workers!

Late at night, Anthropic introduced the powerful AI office tool - Cowork, specifically designed for daily work.

Just as programmers use Claude Code to write code, from now on, anyone can use Cowork to do other jobs just as smoothly.

Cowork has an extremely low entry threshold. Select the type of task from the list, upload a file with a single sentence, and complete tasks such as creating documents, formulating plans, and analyzing data with one click.

Even cooler is that Cowork can instantly tidy up the desktop. It has to be said that it looks much cleaner! Netizens: AGI.

The father of Claude revealed that Claude Code wrote 100% of the code for Cowork. It's simply crazy.

Today, the research preview version of Cowork is launched. Subscribers of Claude Max can experience it first on the macOS app.

The era of the "non - programmer version of Claude Code" has arrived.

One can replace thousands of troops

Not just for coding, the most powerful AI works for you

Originally, Anthropic launched Claude Code with only one purpose: coding. It was thought that most people would mainly use it for writing code.

As a result, there was a pleasant surprise. Programmers got creative and started using it to do all sorts of interesting things:

Formulating vacation plans, creating PPTs, organizing emails, canceling subscriptions, restoring wedding photos from the hard drive, detecting plant growth, controlling the oven...

The father of Claude said that people's actions tell us one thing -

What people really want is not an AI that can only write code, but an AI that can directly "work autonomously".

So, Cowork, which is launched today, came into being.

So, what's the difference between Cowork and an ordinary conversation? To sum it up in one sentence: It's a complete substitute for a worker.

First, authorize Claude to access a specific folder on the computer, and it can read, edit, or create files in the folder.

For example, it can sort the downloaded messy files according to rules and rename them one by one.

Or extract information from a bunch of random screenshots and automatically generate a table listing the expenses;

Or, integrate the scattered content in personal notes into a well - structured draft report.

Moreover, the most crucial point is that in Cowork, Claude has a very strong initiative and autonomy.

After you assign a task, it will formulate its own plan, actively reason, and continuously synchronize the progress in real - time, telling you what it's doing.

This experience of "actively doing things + real - time synchronization" is almost the same as that of Claude Code -

Because Cowork reuses the same underlying capabilities.

It simply removes the programming threshold completely and can handle the tasks that Claude Code can do, making it easy for everyone to use.

The real Jarvis is launched, and it gets stronger with use

After getting familiar with the "basic operations", Cowork can continue to be upgraded and get stronger with use.

It can use connectors to link Claude with external information sources.

At the same time, Anthropic has built - in the first batch of skills, specifically to enhance Claude's ability to produce common office materials such as documents, PPTs, tables, and emails.

Cowork can also be used in conjunction with Claude in Chrome to complete tasks that require browser access, such as researching information and downloading web content.

The original intention of Cowork is to let everyone worry as little as possible when dealing with "new work".

A task can be split into several segments and queued up for Claude. Humans can insert changes to requirements, add requests, or stop the task at any time, and it can handle them all.

At this time, the collaborative experience is no longer the "question - and - answer" chat mode, but more like -

Leaving a message for a reliable colleague to assign a task.

Isn't this just the real - life version of "Jarvis"?

Is it the end of the road for office workers? Will it smash the jobs of white - collar workers?

It seems that Anthropic's ambition is no longer just about coding, but to create a "general intelligent agent".

After a real - world test by AI expert Simon Willison, his first impression perfectly matched Cowork.

He asked Claude to figure out which of his 46 draft files from the past three months had actually been published. As a result, after 44 separate searches, it accurately found all the files.

Even more astonishing is that the Anthropic team developed the new Cowork feature in just a week and a half.

In an interview, engineer Felix Rieseberg revealed that several different prototypes had been internally developed before Christmas.

Now, with more and more people using Claude to automate their life processes, it's the perfect time for the release.

The birth of Cowork may cause many startups to "go under" overnight.

For workers, it's a real magic weapon for boosting work efficiency. It can help you with your work, write reports, and create tables.

Netizens' experiences

Netizens found that Claude is also very good at directly editing files.

Give it a folder, and it can easily convert squirrel video formats to mp4, add vintage VHS filters and timestamps.

Throw 320 massive podcast transcripts to Claude, and it will output ten important themes, lessons learned, and ten most counter - intuitive viewpoints.

AI influencer Xiaohu said that local automated office work is the biggest trend this year. If Microsoft and Apple don't act soon, they will soon be revolutionized.

Some people said that 2025 was the year of "ambient programming", so 2026 may become the year of "ambient office work".

If this trend continues, large - scale unemployment will be inevitable.