Claude Cowork gets shared memory with chat: What it means for you

Anthropic is making its AI assistant more consistent across the different ways you use it, addressing a common frustration with agentic tools. Until now, information shared in one Claude experience did not always carry over to another, meaning you could spend time explaining a project before asking the AI to act on it.

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The company’s latest enhancement aims to create a smoother handoff, while giving users greater visibility and control over stored information. The update could make it easier to move from brainstorming to execution without starting over, particularly if you rely on Claude for repetitive workflows, research or planning.

Claude Cowork and chat now share memory

On August 25, Anthropic announced that it is merging the memory systems used by Claude chat and Claude Cowork. This means information Claude remembers from one experience can now be available when you use the other.

Previously, you could discuss a project with Claude over several conversations and then have to brief Cowork again when it was time to put those ideas into action. With the update, Claude is designed to work more like one continuous assistant rather than separate tools.

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For instance, if you had discussed a conference with Claude, Cowork could already have details such as the event’s headcount, city and speakers when you ask it to prepare an agenda or an update for your manager.

Claude will also add topics to its memory while you chat, rather than waiting until a conversation ends. This means information can be updated and made available across Chat and Cowork more quickly.

Users get more control over memory

Anthropic is also giving users greater control over what Claude remembers. By default, Claude does not store sensitive information such as health data, race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, political views or gender identity. Users can enable the “include sensitive topics in memory” option if they want Claude to remember such information, and the app will notify them whenever it saves a sensitive topic.

Claude will not save certain information, including government-issued identification, Social Security numbers, criminal history and immigration status.

The memory feature is enabled by default for Free, Pro and Max users across web, desktop and mobile. iPhone and Android users need to update to the latest Claude app to access the feature.