Anthropic expanded its AI agent tool Cowork to Windows, bringing full feature parity with the macOS version that launched on January 12. The release removes the platform restriction that had limited the desktop application to Mac users and opens access to the majority of enterprise users, where Windows remains the dominant operating system.
Cowork runs as a desktop agent powered by Claude Opus 4.6 with a one-million-token context window. Unlike traditional chatbot interfaces, the tool can read local files, execute multi-step tasks, and use plugins to interact with external services — all directly from a user’s machine. The Windows version mirrors the macOS workflow: users describe a task in natural language, and the agent plans and carries it out across files, applications, and connected tools.
Access to Cowork requires a Claude Pro ($20 per month), Max ($100 per month), Team, or Enterprise subscription. The free tier does not include the agent.
The Windows rollout coincides with the continued expansion of Cowork’s plugin ecosystem. On January 30, Anthropic Labs released 11 open-source agentic plugins covering use cases across sales, legal, finance, marketing, data analysis, and software development. Built on Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP), the plugins allow Cowork to connect with external systems such as CRMs, spreadsheets, legal drafting tools, and project management boards without requiring users to switch between apps.
Anthropic has open-sourced the plugins, allowing developers and enterprises to customize them or build their own integrations. The approach extends the strategy behind Claude Code — the company’s terminal-based coding agent — and its integration into Slack for in-chat development.
A key differentiator for Cowork is its ability to access local files. The agent can read and write to directories on a user’s machine, process documents stored on the desktop, and chain together tasks that would otherwise require manual coordination between applications. Enterprise administrators on Team and Enterprise plans can configure permissions and restrict approved plugins to maintain internal security controls.
The Windows release follows heightened market attention around agentic AI tools. Shortly after Cowork’s initial macOS debut, software stocks tied to overlapping productivity categories experienced sharp declines, reflecting investor concerns that multi-purpose AI agents could reduce demand for standalone SaaS products.
By bringing Cowork to Windows, Anthropic removes a barrier that had limited adoption among enterprise users, who predominantly operate in Windows environments. The expansion positions Cowork more directly against competing agent tools embedded in productivity ecosystems, including Microsoft’s Copilot integrations and Google’s Gemini agents within Workspace.
Anthropic, which was recently valued near $350 billion after its latest funding round, has framed Cowork as central to its enterprise and consumer AI strategy. Unlike fully cloud-based assistants, Cowork runs locally on users’ machines, which the company says offers greater control over data and lower latency for file-intensive workflows.
With full Windows support now in place, Cowork becomes accessible to a broader segment of professional users. Whether it can consistently handle the multi-step, cross-application workflows common in office environments will determine how much of that early market momentum translates into sustained adoption.
This analysis is based on reporting from Unite.AI.
Image courtesy of Anthropic.
This article was generated with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy and quality.
