Claude just got an app that messages you first.
On October 21, Anthropic opened Claude Duet. The regular Claude app waits for you to start a chat. Duet doesn't. Every morning it sends you a short brief on what needs you across the apps you've connected (your inbox, your calendar, your invoices), then checks back every few hours and only pings you when something matters.
You can hand it tasks by text or voice: "find the unpaid invoices and draft the reminders," "move my 3pm," "build me a one-page dashboard." It keeps working on its own computer in the cloud after you close your laptop.
What it means for your account, from Anthropic's own pages:
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It's included in Claude Pro ($20 a month) and Max ($100 or $200), US only, by waitlist. There's no extra price during the preview.
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It spends your usage limit. Those background check-ins count against the same limit as your normal chats, and big jobs like a deck or a spreadsheet model use more. If you hit Pro's limit most weeks already, Duet will push you toward Max.
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It asks before it acts. Before it sends a message, pays for something, signs or deletes anything, it shows you exactly what it's about to do and waits for your OK. Some things are off-limits even with your OK, like moving money between accounts.
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It's not on Claude Team or Enterprise yet. If you use Claude through a work account, you can't turn it on there.
One setting to check before you connect anything: on Pro and Max, Anthropic can use your chats to train Claude unless you switch it off. Click your name, then Settings, then Privacy, and turn off "Help improve our AI models." Do it before an AI starts reading your inbox, not after.
This week's AI tip: get your own morning brief today (5 minutes)
You don't need the waitlist to get most of what Duet's morning brief does. If you've connected Gmail and Google Calendar to Claude (Customize, then Connectors) or to ChatGPT, open a new chat and paste this:
Look at my email from the last 24 hours and my calendar for today and tomorrow. Give me a brief in three parts: (1) anything that needs a reply from me today, with who it's from and one line on why, (2) anything on my calendar that looks wrong, double-booked, or missing prep, (3) anything I can ignore. Keep it under 150 words. Don't send or change anything.
Run it tomorrow morning before you open your inbox. If it catches one thing you'd have missed, save the prompt as a Project (Claude) or a custom GPT (ChatGPT), the trick from last week's issue, and it's one line every morning after that.
Also this week in AI
The saved skill you made last week now works in more places. On October 22, Anthropic handed its Agent Skills standard (the format behind Claude's skills) to an independent foundation. More than 70 tools already read the same skill file, including ChatGPT, Cursor and GitHub Copilot.
The update I promised: what grew my email signups
Last week I said one change tripled my signups in a week. I went back to the numbers before writing this, and that wasn't quite right. It more than doubled them in a week, and tripled them over six.
The change: on the pages people land on when they've just hit an AI usage limit, I stopped asking them to "join my newsletter" and offered a one-page cheat sheet of every plan's limits instead. It went live on a Friday in September. Signups went from 12 that week to 26 the next, and they've run about 30 to 50 a week since, against about 11 a week before.
The lesson works for anything you ask people for: offer the fix for the problem they have right now, not a subscription.
Free this week
That same cheat sheet: every ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Copilot plan's usage limits on one page, updated when the vendors change them. Handy now that Duet shares your Claude limit.
Get the cheat sheet
Reply and tell me the three things you check every morning before real work starts. I'll share the most common ones (no names) in a future issue.
And if you'd rather have Claude set up properly for your business in one go, your context, skills and the right connections, that's what my
Claude for Small Business install does.
Talk soon,
Justin
P.S. Next Tuesday: the AI privacy setting most people never change in ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, and the 2-minute check for each one. It matters more every week that AI reads more of your inbox.