Claude Cowork goes local‑first

Anthropic’s Claude Cowork now keeps its conversation history on the user’s computer instead of under Anthropic’s normal retention window. (support.claude.com) Anthropic says Cowork is a “research preview” inside Claude Desktop that can handle multi-step tasks, use internet access, and work with local files without opening a terminal. The company’s product page says it is built for knowledge work such as research synthesis, document preparation, and file management. (support.claude.com) (anthropic.com) The local-history change comes with limits. Anthropic says Cowork activity is not included in Audit Logs, the Compliance Application Programming Interface, or Data Exports, and it tells customers not to use Cowork for regulated workloads. (support.claude.com) That puts Cowork in a different bucket from Anthropic’s standard chat products, where retention is still a policy setting. Anthropic said in its consumer terms update last year that users who allow model training can have new or resumed chats retained for five years. (anthropic.com) Cowork is also designed around the desktop rather than the web app. Anthropic says it runs on the user’s computer, can reach local folders and apps, and in newer releases can operate in an isolated virtual machine and use “computer use” to click, type, and navigate on screen. (anthropic.com) (support.claude.com 1) (support.claude.com 2) Anthropic has been widening Cowork’s scope in recent weeks. Its release notes say phone-linked persistent threads started rolling out to Max users on March 17, 2026, with Pro users following over the next two days, and computer use in Cowork was added on March 23, 2026. (support.claude.com) The company is also building local structure around that model. Anthropic’s help center says Cowork projects live locally on the desktop and keep their own files, instructions, context, and memory. (support.claude.com) The tradeoff is straightforward: more control over where task history sits, and less centralized visibility for compliance teams. Anthropic’s own documentation frames Cowork as a desktop agent for people who want Claude to work across their machine, not as a record-keeping system for sensitive or regulated work. (support.claude.com) (anthropic.com)