Anthropic has introduced a new feature in Claude called Computer Use. When enabled, it allows Claude to take control of your computer, moving the mouse and using screenshots to decide where to click. I took it for a spin to see what it could do.
You’re using Claude wrong if you’re treating it like ChatGPT
Many people are fleeing ChatGPT for Claude but making the same mistakes.
Using Claude Computer Use
Letting Claude loose on my Mac
I wanted to see what Claude Computer Use could do, so I enabled it on my Mac, which is running the Claude desktop app. Currently, Computer Use is still only available on macOS, although Windows support is supposed to be on the way. It’s in research preview and is available to Pro and Max users in Cowork and Claude Code.
Enabling Computer Use was simple to do, although in typical fashion, when I asked Claude how to do it, the chatbot didn’t think it was possible. I had to tell it to look it up before it would acknowledge that the feature exists.
I went to Settings, selected General under Desktop app, and toggled Computer Use on. I then granted permissions for accessibility and screen recording. You can choose to block Computer Use from specific apps if you’re worried about Claude getting into the app where you store the nuclear codes and destroying all mankind.
I didn’t trust it with my money
A lot of people are using Computer Use for coding tasks, but I wanted to try it out on more general tasks. I decided to see if Claude could help with some shopping.
I asked Claude to search Amazon to find all the components I’d need to build a local voice assistant for Home Assistant. I asked it to look at review scores and to check reviews, if necessary, to ensure that the products it was selecting were suitable for the project. I told Claude to add all the products it chose to the basket, but didn’t sign into my Amazon account in case Claude suddenly decided to spend thousands of dollars on tech.
Claude immediately got to work. I was asked to grant permission to read and make edits on the Amazon website, and then I watched in real-time as it started to search for a Raspberry Pi.
It found a Raspberry Pi, but then stopped the process to ask me if I wanted a basic USB mic and speaker, or a more capable ReSpeaker HAT. I answered the questions, and Claude carried on, adding the Raspberry Pi to my basket by clicking the appropriate buttons exactly as I would have done myself.
- Brand
-
Raspberry Pi
- CPU
-
Cortex-A72 (ARM v8)
With the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, you can create all kinds of fun projects, and upgrade gadgets around your home. Alternatively, install a full desktop OS and use it like a regular computer.
Computer Use isn’t fast
It’s a dull watch
The biggest takeaway as I sat and watched my computer working by itself was that it was incredibly slow. This isn’t like in sci-fi where the robot picks up the book, flicks the pages for a second, and has read the entire thing. The whole process was far slower than if I’d been doing it by hand.
Speed isn’t really the point, however. Computer Use lets you hand off jobs so that you don’t have to do them yourself, and you can go and get on with other things. I would say it took around 15 minutes for Claude to find the products and add everything to the basket.
The final result was pretty impressive. It had added everything I needed to the basket, and when I took a look at the choices, they all had reasonable review scores and would have been fit for purpose. Claude did stop to ask me for confirmation on specific points now and then, but the questions it asked were all reasonable.
Another frustration was that I kept hitting the tool call limit for the session. I only needed to click the Continue button for Claude to carry on, but it stops this from being something you can start and leave unattended to run through to completion, which would make it far more useful.
Honestly, I could have done the same job much quicker myself. Being able to just ask Claude to find some products and add them to my basket is genuinely useful, however, although I still don’t trust it enough to let it actually click the buy button.
Claude can handle repetitive tasks
It just does them very slowly
The next thing I tried was an app that I can’t directly control through any API or MCP. The Draw Things app is an image generation tool that you can use to generate images locally without having to upload your face to OpenAI when you want to put yourself in a Studio Ghibli movie.
I wanted to see if I could use Claude to iterate on a prompt until it matched a complicated yoga pose. I asked Claude to keep generating images and iterating on the prompt until it got something that matched.
The first image didn’t match the correct pose, and Claude kept editing the prompt to refine the image. It took a lot of turns, which may partly be due to the limitations of the generative AI model, but after eight iterations, it produced an image that showed the correct pose. It would have taken me a lot longer to get to the end result myself, so this is something where the iterative power of Claude can genuinely be useful.
Computer Use is a start, but it’s not perfect
This is the way AI seems to be going
Computer Use arrives at a time when agentic AI tools such as OpenClaw are attracting huge attention. It does seem like using AI for agentic purposes is the way things are heading, and Computer Use is certainly a significant step in that direction.
It’s far from perfect, however. The process is very slow, and even when you try to lock things down, you can unexpectedly end up exposing personal information. When generating the images, Claude tried to export them even though I didn’t ask it to, and ended up revealing the names of common contacts in my share sheet. It’s not impossible that you could unwittingly expose much more sensitive information, such as passwords or bank details.
I still don’t trust Claude completely
Claude Computer Use is impressive, even if it is in its infancy. Hopefully, Anthropic can develop better guardrails, as in its current form, I still don’t fully trust it with free rein over my computer. I can’t shake the feeling that it’s going to open Chrome, hack into the Pentagon, and bring about Judgment Day.
Stephan is the sports journalist for the Maple Grove Report.
