Claude Can Now Control Your Mac — What Anthropic's Desktop Agent Actually Does

Anthropic just shipped the feature everyone saw coming but nobody expected this soon: Claude can now take over your Mac and do your work while you go grab coffee. They're calling it Claude Desktop Agent, and it's available now for Claude Pro and Max subscribers. What It Actually Does You message Claude a task — from your phone, your browser, wherever — and Claude opens apps on your Mac, navigates your browser, fills in spreadsheets, moves files around. Anything you'd do sitting at your desk, it does for you. Anthropic demoed a scenario where someone is running late for a meeting. They text Claude: "export my pitch deck as PDF and attach it to the meeting invite." Claude opens Keynote, exports the file, finds the calendar event, and attaches it. No hand-holding required. This works through Dispatch, a feature inside Claude Cowork that gives you a persistent conversation thread with Claude across devices. You start a task on your phone during your commute, Claude picks it up on your Mac