Explainer. Checked November 10, 2026.

Where did Claude Cowork go?

Nothing was taken away. The button was. Cowork is now what Claude does when you ask for work instead of an answer, and yes, we are aware of what that means for a site with our name.

The one-line answer

Anthropic merged chat and Cowork into a single Claude, starting with Pro and Max in September 2026. If your message box no longer offers separate "Chat" and "Cowork" options, you have the new version. Describe the task in any conversation and Claude decides when to go off and do it.

Which version do I have?

What you see	What it means	How to start a task
No Chat or Cowork choice in the message box	New unified experience	Just ask, in any conversation
"Chat" and "Cowork" in the bottom-left of the message box	Older experience	Select Cowork, then describe the task
No Cowork anywhere and the app is old	You need an update	Update the desktop or mobile app first

Where my old stuff went

Scheduled tasks and session history keep working after the switch. Projects, connectors, skills and plugins carry over. On Pro, Max and Ultra, new tasks have run in the cloud since October 6, 2026, which is why work continues when you close the laptop.

What did change is local-only work. The "Only on your computer" setting is gone on those plans. Your folders stay on your machine and Claude fetches copies of the files a task needs, but if keeping everything local matters to you, Anthropic's suggested route is Claude Code in the desktop app.

What still needs the desktop app

Reading and writing files in folders on your computer.
Driving a browser during a task.
Computer use.

Web and mobile can start, steer and review tasks, use connectors and skills, and run scheduled tasks. Mobile does not show artifacts.

If you run Claude for a company

The Enterprise setting is called Chat and Cowork unified. It has been off by default in existing organizations and turns on by default on November 16, 2026. Three things to check before then:

Prerequisites. It needs Chat on and cloud code execution and file creation on. If either is off, nothing switches automatically.
Exclusions. Organizations on zero data retention, the HIPAA-ready configuration or customer-managed encryption keys cannot turn it on yet.
Reporting. Usage moves to its own line, "Chat and Cowork unified". If someone on your team totals Chat and Cowork usage in a spreadsheet each month, their numbers will look like they fell off a cliff unless they add the new line.

Network access from the cloud sandbox is off by default for Enterprise, and owners can open it to package managers, a domain list, or everything.

So is "Cowork" dead as a name?

Not yet. The help center still has an article titled for Cowork, admins still see the word in settings and reports, and plenty of people still type it into a search bar, which is probably how you got here. But Anthropic's direction is clear: one Claude, no mode to pick. We will keep this site pointed at the same thing it always covered, which is getting real work out of Claude, whatever the menu calls it.

New since the merge: Sheets, Whiteboards, Data and Meetings. Setup basics are still in Start Here.

Straight answers

Was Claude Cowork discontinued?

No. Its capabilities were merged into the main Claude experience. In the new version there is no Cowork button; you describe a task in any conversation.

How do I get the Cowork button back?

Anthropic has not documented a way to switch back on Pro, Max or Ultra. On Enterprise, an owner controls the Chat and Cowork unified setting.

When does unified Claude turn on for Enterprise?

By default on November 16, 2026, for organizations that have Chat and cloud code execution enabled and are not on an excluded configuration.

Sources

ClaudeCowork.com is an independent site and is not affiliated with Anthropic. Features in beta change quickly; the date at the top is when we last checked this page against the sources above.