Anthropic offers its AI assistant as three separate products: Claude, Claude Code and Cowork. The shared name makes them sound alike, but each is built for a different kind of job. Standard Claude is for conversation, Claude Code works on software, and Cowork works through longer tasks that span files and tools.
Standard Claude is the version most people know. They open the website or the mobile app, type a request and get a reply in a chat. It helps with brainstorming, writing, summarising and thinking through a problem. But it stays close to the conversation, and it does not move through a software project or a longer task on their behalf.
Claude Code is where the assistant stops being only a chat tool, because it is built to work inside the software project itself. It reads the project’s code, edits files and runs typed instructions on the computer. Developers use it in a text window for controlling software directly, and in the editor where they build applications. They describe what to build, and the product can then move through the project and make the changes. It helps build features, fix bugs, automate development tasks and prepare proposed changes for review.
Cowork takes that shift beyond software, to larger pieces of work that may need time, files and several steps. It brings the abilities of Claude Code into the desktop app, so people can set a task there, step away and come back to finished work. Cowork can break a complex job into smaller tasks and run several strands of that work at the same time. Like Claude Code, it can be taught specialised routines through folders of instructions and scripts, which Anthropic calls skills. It works directly on the person’s computer, with the files they choose to share, while any code it runs stays inside a separate, sealed-off computer environment.
Its reach goes beyond the files on that computer. Through links to outside services, called connectors, Cowork can pull in information from workplace apps such as Slack, Notion and Figma. The same links let it take actions inside connected services, such as Google Drive.
