Anthropic adds Claude Cowork to its Chrome extension

Anthropic has added Claude Cowork sessions to its Chrome side panel, bringing the Claude Cowork Chrome extension’s skills, plugins and connectors into browser-based work. The change turns the panel from a browser assistant into a persistent Cowork workspace that can carry work between Chrome and other Claude surfaces, while giving the model direct ability to act on webpages.

Anthropic says Claude in Chrome can read a page, click controls, type, navigate and fill in forms. The company positions it for tasks such as pulling information from pages into documents or forms, comparing material across tabs and working through a site while the user watches. The update does not change the central trade-off for browser agents: the tool requires broad access to the browser and can encounter hostile instructions embedded in web content.

What does Claude Cowork in Chrome add?

On eligible accounts, a session opened in the Chrome side panel is saved to Claude history and can be resumed in Claude on the web, desktop or mobile. The session belongs to the user’s account rather than the computer where it started, according to Anthropic’s product documentation.

Skills, plugins and connectors work in the side panel as they do in desktop Cowork. A skill saved while browsing can also be used from another Claude surface. This is the substantive product change: browser activity can feed into the same ongoing workspace and tools used outside the browser, rather than remaining a separate extension interaction.

Some work still depends on the Claude Desktop app. Anthropic says tasks that need local files, computer control or Chrome control initiated from another Claude surface require the desktop application to be open and connected, even if the Cowork session itself runs in the cloud. Recorded workflows remain exclusive to the classic side panel.

Who can use the Cowork-powered side panel?

• Max and Team: the side panel operates as a Cowork session.

• Pro: Cowork support is rolling out.

• Enterprise: an administrator must enable both Cowork in the cloud and Claude in Chrome. Otherwise, users see the classic experience.

Claude in Chrome is offered on paid Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans, with the Chrome side panel still described as beta. It must be installed from the Chrome Web Store and is supported only in Google Chrome, not other Chromium-based browsers or mobile devices.

What are the security and privacy limits?

The extension requests permissions that let it read webpage text, take screenshots, click and type, manage tabs, retain preferences, run scheduled tasks and send notifications. Anthropic says the active tab can be read without additional setup. Content visible in screenshots of tabs Claude works in becomes part of the conversation, so the company advises against using the tool on sensitive sites or pages containing regulated data.

Anthropic identifies prompt injection as the main risk: hidden instructions in a webpage, email or document may try to steer an agent into unwanted actions. Its classifiers scan incoming content and actions, and the Cowork panel defaults to automatically approving lower-risk actions while pausing when it determines approval is needed. Users can switch to manual approval. Anthropic says those measures reduce, rather than eliminate, the risk, and recommends trusted sites and a separate browser profile without sensitive accounts.

The company says it asks permission before financial sites and bars Claude from stock or investment transactions, CAPTCHA bypassing, entering sensitive data, and collecting or scraping facial images. Claude in Chrome is unavailable to HIPAA-covered organizations, according to Anthropic.

This story draws on original reporting from The Decoder.