Claude and Cowork now share what they know about you
- ID
- 17869
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 26 Aug 2026, 3:54 AM
- Fetched
- 26 Aug 2026, 7:10 AM
- Provider
- The Register
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/08/25/claude-and-cowork-now-share-what-they-know-about-you/5292412
- Source URL
- https://www.theregister.com/headlines.atom
Summary
- Score
- 6.5
- Created
- 26 Aug 2026, 7:10 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersvibe_codersai_agent_users
What happened
Anthropic has enabled shared memory between Claude chat and Cowork, its non-coding work assistant, so user memories flow both ways with no option to separate them. Claude Code's memory remains separate, and Anthropic said it has nothing to share about whether Claude Code will join the shared memory in the future.
Why it matters
If you use both Claude chat and Cowork, your personal context—names, preferences, project details—is now pooled across both services with no per-service isolation toggle. Decide now what you're comfortable having Cowork know from your Claude chats, because there's no way to partition it. Claude Code users get a reprieve but should watch for future changes.
Discussion angle
The lack of a per-service memory isolation toggle is a privacy tradeoff worth debating—do you want your casual Claude chat context automatically available to a work-task agent, and what does that mean for teams sharing accounts or using Claude for sensitive brainstorming?