Quoting Felix Rieseberg
Claude Cowork moves model inference and VM execution to the cloud for mobile and battery improvements
“The "new" version of Cowork runs model inference and the VM in the cloud. Each session gets its own sandbox, not sharing state with other sessions.”
Anthropic's Cowork feature is shifting from a local VM model to fully cloud-based inference and sandboxed execution, with the desktop app handling only local file access tool calls. This addresses user complaints about battery drain, disk usage, and work stopping when laptops close. The change enables Cowork on mobile and keeps sessions running persistently, marking a meaningful architectural shift in how Anthropic delivers agentic compute.