Simon Willison

Quoting Felix Rieseberg

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The article explains the transition from the original Cowork system, which ran model inference and tool calls in a local Anthropic VM, to a new cloud‑based version that hosts both inference and the VM. The new design isolates each session in its own sandbox, eliminates local resource drain, and allows file access through the desktop app, addressing concerns about battery usage, performance, and continuity when a laptop is closed.

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Simon Willison
Sep 16

Claude Cowork and chat are now one Claude

Claude Cowork and the standard chat interface are merging into a single Claude experience, allowing users to hand over tasks or ask quick questions that the system will continue to handle even after the laptop is closed. The rollout will begin with Pro and Max plan users across web, desktop, and mobile, and will extend to new users on these plans over the coming weeks. This integration suggests Claude is evolving into a general agent, simplifying the distinction between Cowork and regular Claude usage.

Simon Willison
Aug 30

Understanding ChatGPT Work

OpenAI launched ChatGPT Work on July 9, offering two distinct products: Work Cloud, accessed via chatgpt.com or the mobile apps, and Work Local, available through the desktop app that can run programs on a user’s computer. Work Cloud is a paid‑only feature for $20/month and up subscribers, providing advanced capabilities such as code execution with internet access, a headless Chrome browser, and a persistent filesystem across sessions. The author notes that while ChatGPT Work claims to be better for tasks with clear outcomes, many users find the distinction unnecessary and prefer the standard Chat interface for most use cases.

Simon Willison
Aug 22

Quoting Linus Torvalds

The article recounts a challenging debug session that was significantly aided by an AI assistant. Despite the AI initially claiming the problem was unsolvable and suggesting a report be written instead, it persisted, adding debug code and analyzing it as the author pushed forward. Ultimately, the author credits the AI with writing the commit message for the fix.

Simon Willison
Aug 21

Stop Making TUIs

Stop Making TUIs Thomas Ptacek advocates for building real native user interfaces for even the smallest of personal tools, because coding agents have reduced the cost of getting a usable-enough GUI up and running to almost nothing. I wrote about my vibe-coded bandwidth and GPU monitoring macOS task bar apps back in March , and I'm still using both of those on a daily basis.