How People Are Using Claude Cowork

Anthropic conducted an extensive analysis of 1.2 million anonymized Claude Cowork sessions, collected between May 11 and May 31, 2026, from over 600,000 organizations, to understand its practical applications. The study revealed that roughly half of Cowork's utility is dedicated to tasks Anthropic describes as 'the work around the work' – essential administrative and text-based activities that are often peripheral to core job functions but consume considerable time. The largest categories of use include "Business process and operations" at 33.4%, which encompasses tasks like consolidating status updates, building onboarding checklists, or reconciling spreadsheets. Following this, "Content creation and copywriting" constitutes 16.4% of usage, involving drafting documents, slide decks, and proposals. This data highlights a clear differentiation from Anthropic's other AI tool, Claude Code, which is specifically designed for software development. While developers use Claude Code for coding, Claude Cowork is employed for the organizational and communication aspects that surround their technical work. Over 90% of the sampled Cowork sessions were not related to software development, underscoring its role in enabling non-developers to automate multi-step workflows, manage local files, and orchestrate various tasks, thereby freeing up time for more specialized responsibilities.