Claude DuetThe short answer
A browser AI agent is an assistant that can use websites for you. Instead of only answering a question, it opens pages, reads them, clicks buttons, types into fields and moves through steps until the task is done — while you watch.
Claude Duet’s agent lives in Chrome’s side panel. You describe a task in plain words, and it works in the tab next to it.
How it decides what to do
At every step the agent looks at the page: its text, the buttons and links, and the fields you can fill. It sends a compact description of that page to the AI model with your task and the steps taken so far. The model chooses one next action — click this, type that, scroll, open a page — and the extension performs it in your tab.
Then it looks again. This loop repeats until the task is finished or it needs you.
What it is good at
- Repetitive web work: filling forms, copying data into an admin panel, adding a list of items to a cart.
- Comparing: prices across stores, hotels on a map, specs across product pages.
- Collecting: turning a page of results into a table.
- Errands with many small steps: finding the right page, the right option, the right button.
Where it needs you
Agents can misread a page or pick the wrong element, so good agents are built to ask before important steps. Claude Duet stops and asks before sending, submitting, buying, booking, deleting, signing in or changing account settings. It never types into password or payment fields.
It also works only with what your browser can open: it doesn’t bypass logins, paywalls or CAPTCHAs.
Agent vs chatbot
A chatbot answers. An agent acts. Most of the time you want both: ask a question about a page, then hand off the boring part. That’s why Claude Duet has an Ask mode, a Duet mode with two AIs side by side, and the Agent — in one panel.