Tuesdays are 3 AI updates, one hot take, one action. Fridays are 1 practical real estate agent workflow.
This Thursday I'm in Boston running a full day on Claude. One tool, all day, laptops open, agents building things they'll use the next morning. I keep coming back to Claude for business work, and last week Anthropic made that easier to defend. Cowork is folding into the regular chat window, which means it’s easier than ever to implement workflows.
I don't have it yet either. I’m on Max and my account still shows the old setup, so its possible that yours oes too. Pro and Max get it first over the next few weeks on web, desktop and mobile, with Team and Free behind them. I'd rather you understand it before it lands than open Claude one morning and wonder what moved. Here are the three things Anthropic shipped last week that you should care about.
1. Cowork is becoming just Claude.
On Wednesday Anthropic announced that Cowork stops being a place you go. Everything it could do, plus Claude Design, now runs from inside any conversation and carries your existing context, skills and connectors with it. Two new surfaces came along with it, Claude Docs and Claude Slides, both in beta on paid plans, with output landing at one shareable link that exports to PowerPoint or PDF. You can also switch Claude from asking permission at every step to working straight through and checking in when it's done.
2. Claude for Small Business now reaches the tools you pay for.
Start with what Claude for Small Business actually is, because the name undersells it. It's a set of prebuilt connections between Claude and software you already pay for, plus a library of ready-made jobs it can run inside them. It’s been installed more than 900,000 times since May. Last Tuesday it grew to 43 workflows and 27 new integrations, and the ones that matter for agents are QuickBooks, Stripe, and PayPal for getting paid, Canva for flyers and social, and Docusign for signatures. You can ask which of your active listings still has an unsigned disclosure, or pull last quarter's expenses sorted by category, without opening either app. Know that Anthropic's own post says half the owners it surveyed named data security as their biggest hesitation, and that no-training-on-your-data is the default only on Team and Enterprise. If you have a personal plan flip that switch.
3. Financial advisors got their own Claude. Make your own.
Last Monday Anthropic shipped a version of Claude built for financial advisors: eleven specific connectors wiring it into the software advisors actually run, from Schwab and Vanguard, plus eight prebuilt skills covering client research, meeting prep, compliance checks and follow-up. Financial advising is the closest professional cousin we have, licensed and commission-driven and relationship-first, run mostly by individuals rather than departments. Nobody has built that bundle for real estate yet. Do it yourself today. Swap in your CRM, Docusign, your calendar and your Drive, write down the two jobs you do every single week, and you have a rough version of the same thing.
HOT TAKE
The products that spread fastest are the ones that do the most and ask the least of you. Anthropic understands this. Folding Cowork into the chat window removes a question most people were quietly getting wrong, which is which tool to open before they start. Now the model figures that out and you just describe the work. I've watched hundreds of agents stall at exactly that first decision, and taking it away will do more for adoption than any capability they announce this year.
1 THING TO TRY
Open Claude and look at which of the tools you already pay for has a connector sitting there waiting for you. Most of you will find your email, your calendar and your Drive already on the list. Connect one, just one, and then ask it something you'd normally have opened the app to answer. Which of my clients this week never got a follow-up. Which of my listings has a disclosure still unsigned.
BOSTON LIVE & IN PERSON THIS WEEK!
It’s here - Thursday, September 24 - I'm running a one-day Claude workshop in Boston. Small room by design, laptop open the whole day, and it's $499. The room is almost full so grab one of the last seats here.
If you're wondering what it's like, watch this video of agents talking about their experience at the SoCal Luxury Summit. Looking forward to seeing some of you there!
-Matt
