After this integration, do I still need to separately open the Claude Desktop app, or does the side panel alone handle everything now?
The side panel alone can't fully replace the desktop app. Anthropic's documentation is explicit that if a task needs to work with local files on your computer or interact with other applications installed on your machine, you still need the Claude desktop app — Claude in Chrome's current capabilities are scoped to actions within the browser (opening tabs, reading pages, clicking, typing, filling forms), and don't extend to local file system access.
What this integration changes is that the session in the side panel now shares context with the desktop app — it doesn't give the side panel local File Access capability. The more accurate way to think about it in practice is treating the side panel as the entry point specifically for browser-based tasks within your overall Cowork workflow; whenever a step needs to touch local files, you still switch over to the desktop app.
If I start a task in the browser and switch to checking it on my phone, does the waiting or processing get interrupted by the device switch?
No, it doesn't — that's precisely the core design intent of this integration. Anthropic's documentation emphasizes that because a session is tied to your account rather than a single device, you can start work in the browser and pick it up somewhere else afterward. That means the task Claude is running in the background isn't paused or reset by switching devices — you're just changing which interface you use to view and interact with it; the continuity of task execution isn't affected.
That's also why Anthropic's description of this update specifically uses phrasing like "start at your desk, pick it up on your phone" — the emphasis is on flexibly switching the viewing and interaction interface, not on the task itself needing to re-queue or restart. If you're in the browser waiting on a task that takes a while, closing the browser tab and checking progress on your phone instead is a use case this integration was specifically designed to support.
After this update, do the skills and connectors I already set up in the desktop or web app need to be reconfigured in the browser side panel?
No reconfiguration needed. Anthropic's documentation explicitly states that your skills and connectors now work directly in the browser — meaning the settings already tied to your Cowork account automatically extend to the side panel's session as part of this integration, with no need for you to set up a separate configuration just for the browser interface.
That's also the core value of this integration: if you had to reconfigure skills and connectors every time you switched interfaces, the efficiency gain from working across platforms would be offset by that repeated setup burden. Because context and configuration are tied to your account rather than a single interface or device, whatever you set up on one platform theoretically syncs and takes effect in the Cowork session on every other platform too.
If my company is on an Enterprise plan, does this feature automatically become available to all employees?
No, it doesn't turn on automatically. Anthropic's documentation is explicit that Claude in Chrome is off by default on Enterprise plans and requires an admin to actively turn it on, with the option to further restrict it to approved domains rather than opening it up to every site. That means if you're on an Enterprise plan and don't see this feature yet, it's more likely your organization's admin simply hasn't enabled it, rather than the feature not having rolled out to your account.
This off-by-default design reflects risk considerations specific to browser-level AI Agent actions in an enterprise environment — rather than defaulting to on the way consumer plans do, Enterprise plans hand the decision of whether and how broadly to enable this feature to the organization's own admins, letting a company assess the risk of its internal sites and tools first before deciding on scope, rather than opening it up to every employee all at once. If your organization wants to use this feature, an admin needs to manually turn it on in the admin settings.
Anthropic announced on August 12, 2026, that the side panel in the Claude in Chrome browser extension now runs a full Claude Cowork session. Your conversation history, configured skills, and connected connectors in the browser now share the same context as the desktop, web, and mobile apps — a task you start in a browser tab can be picked up and continued or finished on your phone, with no need to re-explain what you're working on. The feature is available today on Max and Team plans, and is rolling out to Pro users over the coming weeks.
Before this update, conversations in the Claude in Chrome side panel were separate from your sessions in the Claude Desktop app, web, and mobile — context and conversation history didn't flow between them. That meant if you had Claude look something up in the browser, going back to the desktop app, Claude had no idea what you'd just done in the browser, and you'd have to re-explain the background. After this integration, the side panel runs the same Cowork session you're using across other platforms, because the session is tied to your account rather than a single device — you can start work in the browser and pick it up somewhere else afterward.
The official blog post's example: say you're putting together a budget spreadsheet and need to pull in invoices from several vendor portals. Now you can ask Claude in Chrome to collect the amounts and dates directly, and it'll open the tabs, read each invoice, and build the spreadsheet on its own. Then you can pick the session up in the desktop app to add files from your computer, or import last month's budget to compare against — context carries through the whole process, so you don't have to re-explain the task from scratch on a different platform.
Anthropic's blog post notes that while many of the tools you use daily already connect directly to Claude, plenty of others don't — internal dashboards, legacy systems, vendor portals. Services without a ready-made connector previously could only be handled by having Claude work in them through the browser via Claude in Chrome. What this integration accomplishes is folding that kind of "browser-only" work seamlessly into the Cowork workflow you already use, rather than leaving it as an isolated feature disconnected from your main working environment.
The core risk profile of Claude in Chrome stays the same — like any AI Agent that takes action in a browser, the chief risk is Prompt Injection: malicious actors hiding instructions in web content, emails, or documents that you may not see, but that can redirect Claude to take actions you never intended. Anthropic says that since the original pilot, it's added a check on Claude's own actions: using "automatically approve," Claude works through a task continuously without stopping for permission at every step, but before anything consequential — submitting a form, sending a message, downloading a file — a separate check reviews that action against what you originally asked for, and blocks anything that doesn't match. Claude still asks first for irreversible or costly actions like making a purchase or sharing personal data. Anthropic is direct that these measures meaningfully reduce risk but can't eliminate it, and recommends starting on sites you trust.
Claude in Chrome currently only works in Chrome itself — it doesn't run on other Chromium-based browsers yet, and there's no mobile version. If a task needs to work with local files on your computer or interact with other applications, you still need the Claude desktop app; the side panel alone can't replace that part. Enterprise plans have Claude in Chrome off by default, requiring an admin to turn it on, with the option to restrict it to approved domains only.
If your workflow spans multiple platforms — scheduling Cowork tasks at your desk, checking progress from your phone while out, occasionally needing to handle a connector-less site directly in the browser — this integration stitches those previously separate scenarios together, so switching interfaces no longer means re-explaining your task from scratch. If you currently use Claude mostly on a single device through a single interface, this update won't feel like much of a change day to day. But if you've already gotten used to treating Cowork as a workflow you can pick up anytime, this update fills in the browser — the one piece that hadn't yet been stitched into the overall context.