Anthropic PBC has unveiled an update to Claude Cowork, empowering users to extend its capabilities through custom plugins.
Claude Cowork is an automation tool launched by the company earlier this month for its popular chatbot. It can execute multi-step tasks within folders and a user's browser. For instance, an employee could instruct Claude Cowork to automatically summarize a set of newly downloaded business documents.
The latest update enables users to personalize the tool by creating plugins. These plugins can include MCP integrations, granting Claude Cowork access to external applications. A salesperson, for example, could build a plugin allowing Claude Cowork to extract lead data from a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform.
Plugins can also incorporate sub-agents. These are specialized versions of Claude optimized for specific tasks. Users can grant sub-agents data access and provide system prompts tailored to their target use case, detailing how the task should be performed. An employee might, for instance, configure a sub-agent to present data visualizations in a specific design format.
Additionally, users can equip Claude Cowork with custom slash commands. These text-based shortcuts allow for the manual activation of user-created automated workflows.
The plugin creation wizard for Claude Cowork is itself a plugin. Customers also have access to ten other pre-packaged extensions built by the company. Most focus on department-specific use cases like sales, marketing, and accounting. Two general-purpose plugins are also available, designed to assist with task management and research.
Anthropic plans to release an enhanced version of the Claude Cowork plugin system in the coming weeks. This update will enable companies to create internal plugin directories for their employees.
Alongside today's automation enhancements, Anthropic revealed that NASA is among the organizations using Claude to accelerate manual employee tasks. The space agency's researchers recently employed the chatbot to generate driving instructions for the Perseverance Mars rover. According to Anthropic, Claude cut the time required for this task in half.
The Perseverance rover operates within a 29-mile-wide crater containing rocks and other potential hazards. Before the car-sized rover can move to a new location, researchers must chart a clear, obstacle-free route. NASA personnel traditionally develop these driving paths by analyzing Mars images captured from orbit and footage collected by the rover's onboard cameras.
Anthropic states that Claude automated the analysis of Martian imagery to develop navigation guidance for Perseverance. It then implemented these instructions using the Rover Markup Language, a programming syntax developed by NASA. Last month, Perseverance successfully navigated a 1,300-foot path through a rocky terrain using guidance generated by Claude.
