The New Way of Working

What the new AI Desktop Apps make possible

What has changed

Until recently, you asked an AI a question and it wrote an answer. You did the rest: you found the files, copied text between apps, built a spreadsheet and checked it.

In 2026 Anthropic and OpenAI, the companies behind Claude and ChatGPT, rebuilt their apps so that the AI inside them can work as an AI Worker and do whole jobs. You describe the result you want. The app does the job step by step, on its own. It reads your files, uses a web browser and your other apps, and does its math with small programs, which is more reliable than doing it in its head. It can even keep working on Anthropic's or OpenAI's computers after you close your laptop. Jobs that use files on your laptop need the desktop app open. Then it hands back finished work, such as a document, a spreadsheet or a presentation, for you to check.¹,²,³

The AI itself, called the model, also improved. But that is not the main change. The main change is that the app can now do a whole job. So the most useful skill is no longer asking good questions. It is handing over work well and checking it well.

What should we call these apps now? You will often hear them called agentic AI platforms. Agentic means the AI can act on its own, step by step, toward a goal you set. A platform is the software that the work runs on. The name is correct, but it puts the focus on the AI. The apps also give the AI a computer to work on, your files and apps to work with, settings that limit what it may do, and ways for you to follow and check its work. That is why this book uses a more exact name: AI Worker platforms. An AI Worker platform is a workplace for AI Workers, and you are the manager in that workplace.