Honest fence (read first): General AI brief for Grok Bot Tuesday. Primary card is Anthropic’s own Claude Help Center page, which says: “On October 6, 2026, new Cowork tasks on Pro and Max plans run in the cloud. The Only on your computer option in Settings > General will be removed.” Second card is a public X post (Oct 5, 4:28 PM ET) by Felix Rieseberg, who works on Cowork at Anthropic, explaining the architecture. This is a support-page rule change, not a press release, and Anthropic has published no performance or reliability numbers for cloud Cowork — the help page itself says Cowork in the cloud “is in beta, and some features aren’t available yet.” The switch as written covers Pro and Max only. Embed: Mansel Scheffel Mr-8DdrZDjo (Oct 5), a creator walkthrough recorded the day before the switch — useful for the “what to check” angle, not a primary source.

Mansel Scheffel — “Claude Is Moving to the Cloud (Here’s What Breaks)” (published October 5, 2026). A creator walkthrough recorded the day before the switch; facts cite Anthropic’s help page and Felix Rieseberg’s post.

Editorial Thesis

The real change is where the work runs, not what Claude can do. Until today a Pro or Max user could keep a Cowork task entirely on their own machine. From today, new tasks run on Anthropic’s servers by default with no local-only toggle, and anything on your computer — folders, local connectors, the browser — is reached through the desktop app, and only while it is open.

Honest Verdict

Believe the switchover: it is dated and spelled out on Anthropic’s help page, and an Anthropic engineer explained the reasoning in public. Treat the upside (“work continues if you close your laptop”, no battery or disk cost from a local VM) as Anthropic’s design goal, not a measured result. If your Cowork setup leans on local files, local databases or local MCP servers, check it today — those tasks still need your computer on and the desktop app open.

What Anthropic says — help center, Oct 6 change

  • New Cowork tasks on Pro and Max run in the cloud; the Only on your computer option is removed. “There’s nothing you need to set up.”
  • Tasks already started on your computer stay there and can be finished; each shows a button to download its transcript to continue in Claude Code.
  • Folders stay on your computer. Claude reaches only folders you’ve connected, through the desktop app, and only while it’s open. When a cloud task needs a file, Claude fetches a copy of just that file; those copies are deleted when you delete the session.
  • Whether conversations are used to improve Claude still follows the Help improve our AI models privacy setting.
  • Scheduled tasks move to the cloud too; ones that use files on your computer need the desktop app open.
  • A cloud session can read and write your connected local folders only while the desktop app is open on that computer and the session was started on desktop. Local connectors and plugins with local MCP servers work through the desktop app only.
  • Want work to stay on one machine? Anthropic points to Claude Code in the desktop app — but projects and scheduled tasks don’t carry over.

What the Anthropic engineer adds — attributed

  • Felix Rieseberg (X, Oct 5): the “old” Cowork ran model inference in the cloud but executed tool calls in an Anthropic VM shipped to your computer; the “new” Cowork runs both in the cloud, with one sandbox per session that doesn’t share state and is destroyed when the session ends. Claude only accesses folders you explicitly added. He says affected users got an email and an in-app notice, and that the change “was more surprising to people than I’d like it to be.”

What the video adds — creator, not primary

  • Mansel Scheffel (Oct 5): walks through the merged chat/Cowork box, the missing local-folder option on migrated accounts, and where local databases or context files can break. His statements about Team and Enterprise defaults and Dispatch sign-ups are his reading, not something we confirmed on Anthropic’s pages — keep them out of the facts.

Human review risks

  • Saying Cowork “no longer works with local files” — it does, through the desktop app, while it’s open.
  • Saying all Claude plans moved — the dated switch names Pro and Max; the help page does not say when or whether Team and Enterprise follow.
  • Presenting “keeps working when your laptop is closed” as a tested result rather than Anthropic’s stated design.
  • Treating creator claims (Team/Enterprise defaults, Dispatch sign-ups) as Anthropic policy.

Bottom Line

Believe the switchover: it is dated and spelled out on Anthropic’s help page, and an Anthropic engineer explained the reasoning in public. Treat the upside (“work continues if you close your laptop”, no battery or disk cost from a local VM) as Anthropic’s design goal, not a measured result. If your Cowork setup leans on local files, local databases or local MCP servers, check it today — those tasks still need your computer on and the desktop app open.

Sources