SVENNISAIWhat Claude Cowork does in a UK company, and what it costs
Cowork is what Claude does when you give it a task instead of a question. It works in the files and apps you give it access to, and comes with every paid plan.
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- Who makes itAnthropic. Cowork is part of Claude, not a separate product. It is how Claude works when it has a task, a folder and a tool.
- Which plansEvery paid plan: Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise. Not the Free plan. For a company, the plan is Team.
- Where it runsThe desktop app on Mac and Windows, the web, iPhone and Android, and a Chrome side panel on Max and Team, rolled out plan by plan through 2026.
- What it costsNothing beyond the seat. The Pro and Team prices, in pounds, are on our Claude pricing page; we add nothing to them.
What Claude Cowork is, and what it is not
Anthropic's own sentence: "Claude Cowork uses the same agentic architecture that powers Claude Code, with no terminal required." Its product page: "Give it a goal, and it works across your files and tools." In plain words, four things that get confused, side by side.
Until September 2026 Cowork was a mode you picked in the message box. Since 16 September Anthropic has been folding it into every conversation, on Pro and Max first, with other plans to follow. On Team, pick Cowork in the message box until it reaches yours; then give Claude a task and a folder, and it works.
What it does, concretely
Anthropic lists the kinds of task: schedule reports, build spreadsheets, review in bulk, analyse notes, reconcile data, review contracts, research sales accounts, brief legal questions. Below, five tasks from a UK firm.
Claude on a seat, in Cowork: Sam asks, Claude reads the price list and the stock in Xero and drafts the reply into Outlook; Sam decides and sends. One enquiry at a time, when a person asks. That is a seat; an agent would have read the inbox on its own.
Claude on a seat, in Cowork: a person asks, Claude reads what the pilot loaded and connected, the person decides and sends. Walkthroughs, not recordings; names and figures are illustrative.
How you get Claude Cowork
There is nothing to install beyond Claude itself. What decides whether it works well for a firm is the plan, the folders and the connectors. Each row is what Anthropic says.
Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise; the Free plan has the chat without Cowork. For a company, Team, from two seats. It has commercial terms that prohibit training on your content, a data processing agreement, and an admin who decides which connectors are allowed.
The Claude desktop app for macOS and Windows, generally available since 9 April 2026, and the web at claude.ai. A Linux desktop app is in beta for Ubuntu and Debian. The iPhone and Android apps arrived from July 2026, plan by plan; a Chrome side panel exists on Max and Team and is reaching Pro.
Give Claude a task in plain words. On Team, pick Cowork in the message box. On Pro and Max, Cowork is already part of every conversation, so there may be nothing to switch on.
The folders you share, the connectors you allow, web search, and a browser it can use. Anthropic's advice: a dedicated working folder, not your whole drive, and never the folder with the credentials. It asks before an action in the mode you set, and it always asks before permanently deleting a file.
Anthropic's directory has connectors for Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Slack, Zoho, HubSpot and QuickBooks, among others. Xero's reads and does not write; Sage and FreeAgent have none today. Since July, Microsoft 365 can also write to email, calendar, OneDrive and SharePoint once your Microsoft admin allows it. Each person switches on, for their own seat, the connectors the admin allows.
A plugin bundles skills, connectors and sub-agents for a role or a company. The marketplace opened in February 2026, and Team admins decide what may be installed. Anthropic's own Claude for Small Business plugin has its own page: what it does and how to set it up for a UK company.
Since 25 February 2026 Cowork runs a task on a schedule, in the cloud, with your computer off. The Monday report, the daily list. It runs under your account, with the permissions you gave it, so set it up as carefully as a task you watch.
Claude remembers across chat and Cowork since August 2026. Anthropic turns it on by default for Free, Pro and Max, and off by default for Team and Enterprise. Your admin decides.
What Claude Cowork costs in the UK
Cowork has no price of its own: it comes with the seat, with no Cowork plan and no add-on. You buy seats from Anthropic, at its UK list read on 20 October 2026; we do not resell them and add nothing to their price.
Claude pricing in the UK, in pounds, with the date read.
The subscription is the seats alone: four Team seats for a company of four, ten for a company of ten. Whoever needs more moves to a Team premium seat, with five times a standard seat's usage, or buys extra usage from Anthropic.
Anthropic says every plan has usage limits that reset over a rolling five-hour window, and gives no figures. A task with many steps uses more than a quick question. A handful of tasks a day sits well inside it; long tasks back to back all day reach the limit.
Safe to use, and where the data goes
Anthropic's own guidance first. Then what it means for a UK firm holding client files.
Manually approve: Claude asks before each action. Automatically approve: Claude checks each action for safety and blocks what fails. Skip all approvals: no checks. Permanently deleting a file always asks, in every mode.
Instructions hidden in content Claude reads (prompt injection), files deleted by mistake, messages sent on your behalf and purchases. Then scheduled tasks that run with nobody watching, and access beyond what you meant to allow. Its advice: manual approval for anything sensitive, new or hard to undo, and a dedicated working folder, never the one with financial documents, credentials or personal records.
Manual approval on every seat. Drafts that wait for a person. Money read only. A dedicated folder with no client files in it until you have decided which may go in. Those are the settings we start Pilot B with, and you can set them yourself in an afternoon.
Where the data goes. Anthropic stores it in the US and may process it in the US, Europe, Asia or Australia, including any local file Cowork opens through the desktop app. No Anthropic plan keeps a seat's data in the UK or the EU today.
When you delete a task, Anthropic removes it from your task history at once and from its storage within 30 days. Tasks you keep stay until you or your admin delete them.
On Team and Enterprise, Anthropic's commercial terms prohibit training on your content, and its data processing agreement includes the UK Addendum for the transfer. On request we draft the transfer assessment the UK GDPR now calls the data protection test, for you to adopt. Pro and Max are consumer plans with different terms, which is why business data goes on Team.
Do you have to tell your clients? Under UK GDPR your privacy notice names the kinds of organisation that process personal data for you, and a Team seat makes Anthropic one of them. Whether your engagement terms must say more depends on your professional body. The company's AI policy says which client data goes in at all.
Oversight for a larger firm: Team and Enterprise admins decide which connectors and plugins are allowed, see Cowork usage analytics, and can monitor activity through OpenTelemetry. Enterprise adds role-based access controls and security scanning of skills and plugins.
The data and security page: the three layers in one table, the AI policy, the security pack for your IT.
Cowork on a seat, or an AI agent on Claude that we build
Both are Claude, but they work differently. Cowork helps a person who gives it a task; the agent takes on one of the company's processes on its own.
| Claude Cowork, on a seat | An AI agent on Claude that we build | |
|---|---|---|
| What starts it | A person gives the task, or sets a schedule for it. | The work arriving: each email, order or ticket, as it comes, at 2 a.m. on a Saturday too. |
| Whose name it acts in | The person's account and permissions. | The company's own identity in each system, with service credentials and the least privilege that works. |
| What it follows | The instruction in the task, and the person's judgement on each approval. | Rules written in the signed specification, tested on 100 real cases before go-live. A person approves at the points you chose. |
| What is left behind | The conversation and its files; on Team and Enterprise, usage analytics and an activity feed an admin can monitor. | A log of every action you can open at any time, and a monthly report of what it did and what it cost. |
| How much it can take | One seat's allowance. | Built on Claude in your own AWS account, on Amazon Bedrock in London (Opus in the UK, other models within Europe). Billed on use, sized to the volume. |
- 01When a seat is enough. A seat is enough when a task arrives a few times a day and one person owns it. The enquiry a sales person prices. The month-end list. The handbook question. The Monday report on a schedule. For most firms under ten people, a seat is the whole answer, and we say so.
- 02When it is not. An agent is the answer when nobody should have to ask. The inbox that must be read as each email lands. The sales order raised in Zoho Inventory under the company's own credentials. A volume no seat can carry. Anything that must leave an audit trail.
Claude Pilot A: an AI agent on Claude: one process taken on around the clock, from 16,800 GBP, in 30 days.
Would you like us to set it up?
Do you need us at four people? Not to start. Two Team seats, a dedicated folder and manual approval are enough to try Cowork for a month, paying for the seats alone. Once client files and the books come in, our settings and rules earn their place.
Claude Pilot B sets up Claude Team or Enterprise on your company's account, with Cowork on every seat, in 30 days. The base price covers the company account for the whole team, the existing connectors, three real tasks, the company's AI policy and two Claude ambassadors. For a team already on Claude Team, Claude Team Adoption teaches it to use Claude on its own work, in 2 weeks.
All prices are in GBP and exclude VAT. Seats are bought from Anthropic; we add nothing to their price.
Asked about Claude Cowork
Is Claude Cowork free?
No. Cowork comes with every paid plan (Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise) at no cost on top of the seat; Free has the chat alone. The seat prices are on our Claude pricing page, from Anthropic's UK list in pounds, with the date read.
Does Claude Cowork run on Windows?
Yes. Anthropic made Cowork generally available in the Claude desktop app for macOS and Windows on 9 April 2026. It also runs on the web and on the iPhone and Android apps, from July 2026, rolled out plan by plan.
What is the difference between Claude Cowork and Claude Code?
The same way of working, two audiences. Claude Code runs in a terminal and writes software. Anthropic built Cowork on the same foundation for everyone else, so it works in your files, your inbox and your apps with no terminal. If you write code, you use Claude Code; if you run a business, Cowork.
Is Claude Cowork an AI agent?
Cowork works for one person: a task, several steps, tools, approvals. An AI agent on Claude is something else: a program that takes on one of the company's processes and starts with every order, enquiry or ticket. It works in the company's name, is tested on your cases and leaves an activity log that is yours. Section 06 puts the two side by side.
Can Claude Cowork send emails?
With the Microsoft 365 connector it can read your mail. Since July 2026 it can also write drafts, sends, calendar entries and files in OneDrive and SharePoint, once your Microsoft 365 admin has switched the write permissions on; Teams stays read-only. After that, your approval mode decides whether Claude asks before each send. Our advice, and our setting in Pilot B: drafts that wait for a person, until you decide otherwise.
Can it read Xero, QuickBooks, Sage or Zoho?
Through the connectors in Anthropic's directory, where they exist. Xero's own connector reads the books and does not write; Zoho and QuickBooks have connectors too. Sage and FreeAgent have none today: for them we build an MCP server, priced in the offer. Posting a bill or raising an order is work for an AI agent on Claude, built on your own account, not for a seat.
Is Claude Cowork safe for a business?
Yes, when it is set up with narrow permissions, and not otherwise. Anthropic gives you three approval modes, always asks before permanently deleting a file and advises a dedicated folder for anything sensitive. On Team the terms prohibit training on your content. Write the company's AI policy before the first client file goes in: it says which client data may.
Where does our data go?
Anthropic stores it in the US and may process it in the US, Europe, Asia or Australia, including any local file Cowork opens. A task you delete leaves your history at once and Anthropic's storage within 30 days; a task you keep stays until you delete it. On Team and Enterprise, under commercial terms and a data processing agreement that includes the UK Addendum. Pro and Max are consumer plans; the data page has the table, layer by layer.
Is there a ChatGPT version of Claude Cowork?
Other vendors have their own agent modes, and the feature lists change monthly. We work with Claude, so we do not rank them. The honest comparison for a business is not the feature list. It is the terms your data sits under, the connectors to the systems you actually run, who sets it up, and who answers when it goes wrong.
How much is Claude Cowork for a firm of four, or of ten?
The seats alone, paid to Anthropic, with Cowork included: four or ten Team seats, at the price per seat on our Claude pricing page. If you want the settings and the training done by us, Claude Team Adoption is from 5,900 GBP, in 2 weeks. Claude Pilot B, from 12,500 GBP, is for larger teams.
Does Claude Cowork work on Linux, or on a phone?
Anthropic lists the desktop app for macOS and Windows, and a Linux beta for Ubuntu and Debian; where the beta does not fit, Cowork runs on the web. On a phone, the iPhone and Android apps have had Cowork since July 2026, rolled out plan by plan, so a task started at the desk can be checked and approved from the train.
What are a plugin, a skill and a connector?
A connector joins Claude to one app: your mail, your ledger, your CRM. A skill is a written way of doing one job that Claude follows every time. A plugin bundles skills, connectors and sub-agents for a role or a company. Pilot B switches on the connectors you need, read-only at first. Department Activation then writes 5 to 8 skills per department, each with a test set and an owner.
What changed, and when
Cowork has moved eight times since January. That is why most pages about it are wrong somewhere. From Anthropic's release notes.
Claude and Claude Cowork are names of Anthropic's products. Svennis Cloud Solutions is a Select Partner in the Claude Partner Network and is not Anthropic. This guide is ours, checked against Anthropic's pages on the date shown; the windows on it are walkthroughs written from our projects, not recordings.
Thirty minutes: what Cowork would do on your seats, and what an agent would.
Bring the task that takes your people the most time. You leave with a plain answer on whether a seat covers it or an agent is needed, and what each costs.
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