Summarize email and prep briefings from your phone
One of the better aspects of being a journalist—aside from the long hours, the bitter emails and Slack messages, and the wording and rewording of a simple phrase to ensure it reads just right—is the ability to spend time tinkering with things. Task: One of the better aspects of being a journalist—aside from the long hours, the bitter emails and Slack messages, and the wording and rewording of a simple phrase to ensure it reads just right—is the ability to spend time tinkering with things. For the past month, I’ve been tinkering with Dispatch, a new feature from Anthropic’s Claude that essentially turns your phone into a remote control for your desktop. I’ve used it to prepare for a meeting when my lunch was running over, and to pull up a lost file on my desktop without having to spend time looking for it myself. Here are some ways you can use it, too. The first thing to know is that Dispatch is not really a new “model” but more of a workflow layer inside Claude Cowork that connects the Claude mobile app to the Claude Desktop app. This lets Claude run tasks on your computer with access to local files, connectors, plugins, and apps. To get yourself started, you’ll need the latest Claude Desktop and Mobile apps, a Max plan currently priced at $200 a month (the company said it will eventually be available on the cheaper, $20 a month Claude Pro plan), an active internet connection on both devices, and a computer that is awake with the Claude app open. Before we dive into this, it means if you’re out and about, you have to keep your desktop active to use it—let it go to sleep, and the whole remote control thing fails. In actuality, if you set your laptop or desktop to never sleep, it becomes a powerful tool wherever you are in the world, and could potentially mean you can indeed work from anywhere, even as your desktop remains sometimes miles away from your phone. This means no matter where you are, you can ask Claude to pull files, summarize documents, draft a memo, inspect a spreadsheet, prepare a meeting brief, or start a coding task, and Claude will route the work to the appropriate desktop session. Anthropic says development tasks run in Claude Code, knowledge-work tasks run in Cowork, and the results can come back as a spreadsheet, memo, comparison table, pull request, or other completed output. ‘Quick pull’ task The most obvious use case is the “quick pull” task: find a document, summarize it, compare it against another file, or package it for a meeting. Anthropic says Claude Cowork can use local files, connected tools, skills, installed plugins, browser access, and computer use when completing tasks. It also makes Dispatch particularly useful for daily briefings: “Check my calendar, unread email, and Slack mentions, then send me a summary before my first meeting.” By connecting Slack and Chrome to Claude, Anthropic can then list daily briefings that summarize Slack messages, emails, or calendar events as a common use for scheduled Cowork tasks. After spending time with the feature, the use cases that stood out were not sci-fi in nature. They were the annoying, ordinary things that pile up between meetings, errands, commutes, and moments away from a desk: find this file, summarize that thread, prepare tomorrow’s meeting, pull the numbers, draft the follow-up, check whether something came in, and package it all so it is ready when you sit back down. Here are the coolest things Dispatch can do. Keep a continuous task thread Dispatch is not just a pile of disconnected mobile prompts: a Dispatch thread doesn’t reset, so Claude retains context from previous tasks and lets the user start on their phone, continue on their desktop, and pick up later in the same conversation. That sounds minor until you use it for multi-step work. You can ask Claude to find a file, then follow up from your phone with “turn that into a briefing,” and later sit down and ask for edits from the desktop. You can easily switch from smartphone to desktop and continue where you left off. Find files without digging through folders One of the most practical uses is asking Claude to locate files on the computer, such as screenshots, PDFs, notes, decks, receipts, spreadsheets, or templates. Ask it to locate a specific downloaded file from hundreds, and it can (if you use the right keywords, of course). Instead of waiting until you’re back at your desk to dig through Downloads, Drive, Desktop, and app folders, you can ask from your phone: “Find the deck I used for the March client meeting,” “pull the invoice from last Friday,” or “look for screenshots that mention pricing.” Summarize emails while away from your desk; tools: Claude Cowork. Human role: The original post does not say how a person stayed involved.; limitations: Prerequisites include a Claude Max plan ($200/month), latest desktop/mobile apps, and a computer that never sleeps. Security constraints are significant: IT required a tester laptop, and Claude may see sensitive data in approved apps. The workflow fails if the desktop goes to sleep. Proposed advice: Start with read-only tasks and require human approval before any action that sends, deletes, or modifies data..
Tools
Published on Agent Work Atlas:
Overview
One of the better aspects of being a journalist—aside from the long hours, the bitter emails and Slack messages, and the wording and rewording of a simple phrase to ensure it reads just right—is the ability to spend time tinkering with things.
Workflow
One of the better aspects of being a journalist—aside from the long hours, the bitter emails and Slack messages, and the wording and rewording of a simple phrase to ensure it reads just right—is the ability to spend time tinkering with things. For the past month, I’ve been tinkering with Dispatch, a new feature from Anthropic’s Claude that essentially turns your phone into a remote control for your desktop. I’ve used it to prepare for a meeting when my lunch was running over, and to pull up a lost file on my desktop without having to spend time looking for it myself. Here are some ways you can use it, too. The first thing to know is that Dispatch is not really a new “model” but more of a workflow layer inside Claude Cowork that connects the Claude mobile app to the Claude Desktop app. This lets Claude run tasks on your computer with access to local files, connectors, plugins, and apps. To get yourself started, you’ll need the latest Claude Desktop and Mobile apps, a Max plan currently priced at $200 a month (the company said it will eventually be available on the cheaper, $20 a month Claude Pro plan), an active internet connection on both devices, and a computer that is awake with the Claude app open. Before we dive into this, it means if you’re out and about, you have to keep your desktop active to use it—let it go to sleep, and the whole remote control thing fails. In actuality, if you set your laptop or desktop to never sleep, it becomes a powerful tool wherever you are in the world, and could potentially mean you can indeed work from anywhere, even as your desktop remains sometimes miles away from your phone. This means no matter where you are, you can ask Claude to pull files, summarize documents, draft a memo, inspect a spreadsheet, prepare a meeting brief, or start a coding task, and Claude will route the work to the appropriate desktop session. Anthropic says development tasks run in Claude Code, knowledge-work tasks run in Cowork, and the results can come back as a spreadsheet, memo, comparison table, pull request, or other completed output. ‘Quick pull’ task The most obvious use case is the “quick pull” task: find a document, summarize it, compare it against another file, or package it for a meeting. Anthropic says Claude Cowork can use local files, connected tools, skills, installed plugins, browser access, and computer use when completing tasks. It also makes Dispatch particularly useful for daily briefings: “Check my calendar, unread email, and Slack mentions, then send me a summary before my first meeting.” By connecting Slack and Chrome to Claude, Anthropic can then list daily briefings that summarize Slack messages, emails, or calendar events as a common use for scheduled Cowork tasks. After spending time with the feature, the use cases that stood out were not sci-fi in nature. They were the annoying, ordinary things that pile up between meetings, errands, commutes, and moments away from a desk: find this file, summarize that thread, prepare tomorrow’s meeting, pull the numbers, draft the follow-up, check whether something came in, and package it all so it is ready when you sit back down. Here are the coolest things Dispatch can do. Keep a continuous task thread Dispatch is not just a pile of disconnected mobile prompts: a Dispatch thread doesn’t reset, so Claude retains context from previous tasks and lets the user start on their phone, continue on their desktop, and pick up later in the same conversation. That sounds minor until you use it for multi-step work. You can ask Claude to find a file, then follow up from your phone with “turn that into a briefing,” and later sit down and ask for edits from the desktop. You can easily switch from smartphone to desktop and continue where you left off. Find files without digging through folders One of the most practical uses is asking Claude to locate files on the computer, such as screenshots, PDFs, notes, decks, receipts, spreadsheets, or templates. Ask it to locate a specific downloaded file from hundreds, and it can (if you use the right keywords, of course). Instead of waiting until you’re back at your desk to dig through Downloads, Drive, Desktop, and app folders, you can ask from your phone: “Find the deck I used for the March client meeting,” “pull the invoice from last Friday,” or “look for screenshots that mention pricing.” Summarize emails while away from your desk
Reported result
The author reported qualitative success in locating files, summarizing emails, and preparing meeting briefs, noting that the tool handled 'annoying, ordinary things' effectively. However, the post explicitly states that no measured results or quantitative metrics were provided. Failures included difficulty opening Shortcuts and sending screenshots outside the Claude app, alongside the operational burden of keeping the desktop unlocked and awake.
Human role
The original post does not say how a person stayed involved.
Limitations
Prerequisites include a Claude Max plan ($200/month), latest desktop/mobile apps, and a computer that never sleeps. Security constraints are significant: IT required a tester laptop, and Claude may see sensitive data in approved apps. The workflow fails if the desktop goes to sleep. Proposed advice: Start with read-only tasks and require human approval before any action that sends, deletes, or modifies data.
Try it
Act as a remote assistant using Claude Dispatch. My context is [replaceable: e.g., a journalist needing to prep for a 2 PM meeting]. I have a desktop running Claude Desktop with Slack and Chrome connected, and I am using the Claude mobile app. Steps: 1. Confirm the desktop is awake and unlocked. 2. I will send a prompt: 'For my [replaceable: meeting time] meeting, find the latest [replaceable: document type], summarize the last [replaceable: communication channel] thread, and list open questions.' 3. Execute the search and summarization on the desktop. 4. Return the summary and list of questions to my mobile device. 5. STOP. Do not send any emails or modify files. Wait for my explicit approval to proceed with any further actions. Deliverables: A concise summary of the requested documents and a bulleted list of open questions. Quality Check: Verify that the correct file was found by checking the file name and date. If the file is not found, report the error immediately. Safeguards: Treat all data as sensitive. Do not perform write operations without confirmation. If the desktop is asleep, report failure.
Source reports are not independently verified. Publication date is the catalog publication date, not the original article date.