Anthropic Merges Claude Chat and Cowork, Adds Docs and Slides

Anthropic said it built Cowork as a separate place for larger work and Design for visual work. People used both tools, the company said, and told Anthropic that the frustrating part was deciding where a task belonged. Work started in one tool also did not carry into the other, according to the company. Anthropic said it stopped making users choose. Claude can now determine what a task needs, so what Cowork and Design can do is available from any conversation, using the context, skills and connectors a user already has.

9to5Mac reported that the change means Claude will drop from three modes to two: Claude Chat and Claude Code. 9to5Mac also reported that there is nothing for users to turn on and that Enterprise administrators will hear from Anthropic at least 30 days before anything changes for their organizations.

Anthropic is adding two productivity features alongside the merge. Claude Docs lets users ask the assistant to create a document inside a conversation, then edit it, comment on completed sections and share it with collaborators. ZDNet reported that Docs, Slides and Design are in beta for paid plans. Engadget reported that documents can also be exported and opened in Google Docs or Microsoft Word. The Verge reported that Claude Docs start private but can be shared with other editors who can work on the document at the same time; collaborators, including Claude, can leave comments that resemble those on a Google Doc.

Claude Slides lets users ask Claude to create and edit presentations in a chat. TechCrunch reported that users can present slides directly from Claude or download them as a PDF or PowerPoint. Claude Design, introduced in April for website and prototype design, now works anywhere within Claude, according to TechCrunch. ZDNet reported that anything made with Claude Design, Slides or Docs lives at one shareable link that can be opened on a phone. Users can start creating a document on desktop and check the progress of the task on the mobile app, TechCrunch reported.

The unified interface also incorporates Artifacts and Cowork. Engadget reported that Artifacts are pieces of content such as documents, HTML websites and diagrams saved in a sidebar for later access. Cowork is a mode that uses agentic AI to complete multi-step tasks; Engadget reported that it can read work documents and then create documents, slides and spreadsheets. Before this rollout, Anthropic upgraded Cowork's memory layer to help Claude remember user context across chats.

ZDNet reported that Anthropic launched Cowork in January as a non-coding-specific answer to Claude Code, giving non-coding tasks a heavier-lift productivity agent with more capabilities than Claude chat. The company moved Cowork to the cloud in July and said an overwhelming majority of tasks it was used for were not coding-related, ZDNet reported. ZDNet also reported that Claude Docs puts Anthropic more seriously in the running as an AI-first rival to Google's productivity suite, though OpenAI circulated rumors last summer about a similar goal and it is unclear where those plans stand.

The Verge reported that Anthropic's models are generally seen as more advanced than Google's, but Google's AI services have the advantage of being natively tied into its productivity tools. Earlier this year, Google expanded Gemini's role in Google Docs, Sheets and Slides with features including a Gemini chat window in Docs, generating and editing entire documents with Gemini, and creating slides with Gemini, according to The Verge. The addition of Docs and Slides to Claude begins to close the gap between Anthropic's AI platform and Google's productivity tools, The Verge reported.

Anthropic said users who rely on chat and not Cowork should not see their experience change. Claude Design can still be used as a standalone tool, ZDNet reported.

Editor's Summary Anthropic is merging Claude chat and Cowork into one interface and adding Docs and Slides for documents and presentations. The features are rolling out first to Pro and Max users on web, desktop and mobile, with Team and Free plans later. The update simplifies access to Claude's productivity tools and increases its competition with Google's Gemini-integrated Workspace.