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Claude Cowork and chat are now one Claude

claude.com

51–60 of 214 posts

Re: Claude Cowork and chat are now one Claude

#51
post #10

Nobody really knows how to product-ize any of these LLM interfaces beyond just chat. They don't want a traditional UI with buttons and forms and labels because they want the interface to be "chat". The problem is that "chat" is tedious. And the turn-based, linear nature of the chat interaction model makes it even more tedious and unproductive.

One thing I would like is a tree-like chat structure like reddit / HN. Many times I abandon the direction things have gone but would like to resume at some ancestor or sibling response.

I solved this with task management and got work trees.

The downside of course is branching in got, but I usually don’t go of course more then a handful of tasks.

I had to engineer my own ticket management to keep opus on target. It’s been great for managing work, history, audit trails and commits are tagged with the task id.

I implemented subtasks to deal with the way Claude likes to stage its own objectives.

Then I made enforcement logic in the task manager so tasks can’t be closed out until reviewers have consensus on the same sha.

The adhd that is Anthropic demanded I build it and now I’m knocking out issues faster than Batman.

Re: Claude Cowork and chat are now one Claude

#53
post #4

I hope this doesn’t get confusing like ChatGPT made it. I feel like Claude has some of the best UX, and hope this doesn’t dilute the experience.

Claude has a jagged UX if you support non-devs. The surfaces before today in the desktop app were: Chat, cowork, Claude code. Inside Claude code you’ve got cloud environments and local. Let’s say as a normal desktop user you wanted to just automate something normal in your work, going to a website (maybe some internal app at your company) getting some data. Depending on what surface you used this will either not work…

Do you think ChatGPT UX is better (after they merged everything recently)?

Genuinely curious.

Re: Claude Cowork and chat are now one Claude

#54
post #6

People keep asking for this w/ Codex, too, and I really regret that both labs seem inclined to listen. If you ask a thinking/research type question in 'Chat' versus 'Work' mode in these products -- say, something complex about politics, or do a multiturn business strategy, or want to work thru a new concept, you get very different answers. The harness, steering, etc. in the chat/reasoning products is so much better f…

I sometimes get very different answers if I ask the chat product the same question multiple times.

Isn't that expected since LLMs are inherently non-deterministic?

Re: Claude Cowork and chat are now one Claude

#55
post #6

People keep asking for this w/ Codex, too, and I really regret that both labs seem inclined to listen. If you ask a thinking/research type question in 'Chat' versus 'Work' mode in these products -- say, something complex about politics, or do a multiturn business strategy, or want to work thru a new concept, you get very different answers. The harness, steering, etc. in the chat/reasoning products is so much better f…

The fact that it doesn't work well today doesn't invalidate the user need. Not everyone wants a terminal style interface. Traditional UX makes more sense especially if say you are accessing existing plugins and say kicking off a scheduling task - no way would I want to do that via a chat interface if I have the option.

Agree, and it allows ordinary users to have a taste of both worlds, instead of being like: "eww, what is this black box and why doesn't my mouse work"

Re: Claude Cowork and chat are now one Claude

#57

Hi, this is my team! Happy to answer any questions. There's a lot in this launch, but the core idea is to simplify the product while giving users access to more capabilities. You no longer need to know ahead of time how much work a conversation might involve. If you're at your computer, Claude can use your local files and apps. If you close your laptop, Claude can keep working on its own computer. This launch also le…

Will there be a Claude Sheets too? I find myself using Claude to work with spreadsheets more than almost any other document type. It does okay now, but feel like it could be even better, especially with visualizations and formulas.

Re: Claude Cowork and chat are now one Claude

#58

I'm starting to explore alternative options because Claude has become an awful value proposition. Any suggestions?

codex (their app) is pretty good and lots of banked resets, luna is cost effective and Astra seems better than Fable for many tasks. Most important one is less refusals and I can use it the way I want without the fear of getting banned. I do like Claude Code a lot when it comes to pure coding use cases but the work often touches outside code and I don't want to keep switching

Re: Claude Cowork and chat are now one Claude

#59
post #6

People keep asking for this w/ Codex, too, and I really regret that both labs seem inclined to listen. If you ask a thinking/research type question in 'Chat' versus 'Work' mode in these products -- say, something complex about politics, or do a multiturn business strategy, or want to work thru a new concept, you get very different answers. The harness, steering, etc. in the chat/reasoning products is so much better f…

The fact that people asked for it means that there is a demand for it. Maybe you aren't the target audience? One size can't fit all. People just have to adjust and go.

Re: Claude Cowork and chat are now one Claude

#60

Hi, this is my team! Happy to answer any questions. There's a lot in this launch, but the core idea is to simplify the product while giving users access to more capabilities. You no longer need to know ahead of time how much work a conversation might involve. If you're at your computer, Claude can use your local files and apps. If you close your laptop, Claude can keep working on its own computer. This launch also le…

I liked the ability to explicitly only chat, without the possibility of Cowork activating since I have never wanted that. It's unclear how I can still guarantee that now.
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