Claude Adds Scheduled Tasks Feature to Cowork, Boosting Automation

Claude’s Cowork now bundles automation with domain‑specific expertise, a move that positions Anthropic to compete more directly with Microsoft’s Copilot and Google’s Workspace AI add‑ons. According to Anthropic’s own product announcement, the new “Customize” tab in the Cowork sidebar consolidates plugins, skills and connectors, letting users schedule recurring tasks such as morning briefs, weekly spreadsheet updates or Friday team recaps. Once a task is defined, Claude executes it on the chosen cadence without further user input, effectively turning the chat‑based assistant into a lightweight workflow engine (report).

The scheduling capability is backed by a growing library of plugins that give Claude “specialist” knowledge for particular business functions. Engineering teams can pull Jira tickets and GitHub stand‑up summaries, HR users can receive automated headcount briefs, and design squads can get Figma project overviews—all without leaving the Cowork interface (report). By exposing these connectors through a single pane, Anthropic hopes to reduce the friction that typically forces enterprises to stitch together separate automation tools, a pain point highlighted in recent analyst briefings on AI‑augmented productivity (Bloomberg).

Anthropic has rolled the feature out in a research preview for macOS and Windows, and it is already available on all paid Cowork plans, signaling the company’s intent to monetize the automation layer quickly (report). Bloomberg notes that Anthropic’s broader strategy includes “surprise hits” that can shift market dynamics, referencing the firm’s recent Claude Code Security tool that rattled cyber‑stock valuations (Bloomberg). The scheduled‑tasks rollout follows that pattern, offering a tangible productivity boost that can be measured in reduced manual effort and faster reporting cycles.

Industry observers have pointed to the timing of the release as a response to growing competition in the AI‑assisted workflow space. 9to5Mac reported that Anthropic’s latest Opus 4.6 model, launched earlier this month, delivers “more autonomy and better focus,” traits that dovetail with the new automation features (9to5Mac). By pairing a more capable language model with a built‑in scheduler, Claude can not only generate content but also act on it—sending updates, populating spreadsheets, and summarizing project status on a set timetable.

The practical impact for enterprise users will hinge on how seamlessly the plugins integrate with existing tech stacks. While the announcement promises domain‑specific knowledge, Anthropic has not disclosed the breadth of supported connectors beyond the highlighted Jira, GitHub, HR and Figma examples. Nonetheless, the consolidation of plugins, skills and connectors into a single “Customize” tab marks a clear step toward a more unified AI productivity platform, one that could accelerate adoption among teams looking to replace ad‑hoc scripting and third‑party automation services with a single, conversational interface.