Task Machine vs Claude Cowork
Claude Cowork delegates work across files and connected tools. Task Machine organizes people and agents around shared Tasks, Goals and reviewed Workflows.
Visit Claude Cowork Switching from Claude Cowork? Read the migration guideTask Machine and Claude Cowork, point by point
Built from each company's public pages. Every answer links to its source and shows when we last checked it. The oldest check on this page was November 13, 2026.
| What you compare | Task Machine | Claude Cowork |
|---|---|---|
| Goals |
Task Machine
Yes
Give a Goal an agent lead and link Metrics, such as weekly signups or open pipeline value. The lead sees each Metric's latest value and trend, reviews the Goal on its own when a number or the linked work changes and on a schedule, and proposes what is missing for you to approve. |
Claude Cowork
Partly
You can give Claude an outcome and schedule a weekly marketing readout with metrics. Its docs do not describe a goal record with an owner tracking a measurable target. |
| Leads |
Task Machine
Yes
Goals, Projects and Teams each have a lead, a person or an agent. A Goal lead checks that the work can still reach the outcome. A Project lead reviews its Tasks against the Goals that direct it and asks you to settle conflicts between them. A Team lead triages the queue. Every gap becomes a proposal you approve. |
Claude Cowork
Partly
Claude coordinates parallel sub-agents within a task. Its project docs describe sharing and context, not a persistent lead role reviewing and coordinating a project or team. |
| Tasks |
Task Machine
Yes
Every job is a Task that a person or an agent owns. The Task keeps its plan, discussion, decisions, runs and history together, so you can steer one job in detail without reading a chat log, and people and agents hand work to each other on the same record. |
Claude Cowork
Partly
Cowork sessions retain progress and results, and the Productivity plugin maintains a task list people and Claude can edit. Its docs do not establish work items owned by either people or agents with their own discussion and history. |
| Recurring work |
Task Machine
Yes
Start a Task or Workflow once, on a schedule in your timezone, or when a service event arrives, such as a paid invoice or a pull request review. A recurring job keeps one stable root Task and gives each occurrence its own status and history, so repeated work does not flood your board. |
Claude Cowork
Partly
Scheduled tasks run hourly, daily, weekly, on weekdays or on demand, with upcoming and past runs to review. Its Cowork docs do not describe outside events or webhooks starting tasks. |
| Workflows |
Task Machine
Yes
A Workflow repeats your steps in the same order every time, with branches, human questions and approvals, and verifier checks that judge each result against its requirements and send weak work back with feedback. Every run keeps a step-by-step history you can read afterwards. |
Claude Cowork
Partly
Skills save procedures and scripts, and the ticket-triage skill defines ordered categorization and routing steps. Its docs do not establish an enforced multi-step process that runs the same way each time. |
| Autonomy |
Task Machine
Yes
Consequential decisions land in your Inbox with their context. You set what each agent may do on its own: every action is either Ask first or Automatic, per agent, and you can change that whenever the work or the stakes change. |
Claude Cowork
Yes
Connector tools can be set to Always allow, Needs approval or Blocked. Manual mode pauses for permission requests you allow or deny in the task. |
| Learned autonomy |
Task Machine
Yes
Task Machine studies the approvals and corrections you already make. When an agent does well it proposes giving it more freedom, and when it needs closer supervision it proposes tighter review, each with the evidence. A short lucky streak is not enough, and nothing changes until you accept. |
Claude Cowork
Not published
Its public Cowork, permissions, memory, plugin and release documentation does not describe proposals to change an agent's authority based on approval history. |
| Memory |
Task Machine
Yes
Agents keep lessons from your corrections, such as an accepted example or a mistake to avoid, and carry the relevant notes into later work. Memory is kept per agent, project, goal, team and workspace, and you can read, correct and restore any note. |
Claude Cowork
Yes
Cloud Cowork tasks share memory with chat, and projects remember context for future tasks. You can inspect saved memories in Settings and edit or delete individual entries. |
| Planning |
Task Machine
Yes
Plan in Chat with your agents, and the plan becomes Tasks or Library documents instead of staying in a chat log. Before an agent starts, you review its plan and the acceptance criteria its work will be judged against. |
Claude Cowork
Yes
Claude analyzes your request, creates a plan and breaks complex work into subtasks. The getting-started instructions tell you to review Claude's approach before letting it run. |
| Intake |
Task Machine
Yes
Send work in over HTTP with a project token. It lands in the project as a Task, or in your Inbox as a proposal first. A team lead agent triages it to the right owner and asks you only when the decision is yours. |
Claude Cowork
Partly
The Customer Support plugin uses connected ticket history and correspondence, categorizes incoming tickets and recommends a team or queue. Its published workflow describes routing advice, not assigning an incoming request to an owner or agent. |
| Connectors |
Task Machine
Yes
Install services from a catalog as MCP servers, APIs or command-line tools, or add your own custom Connector for any of the three. Events Connectors receive webhooks from a service, such as a paid invoice, and start Workflows or wake a waiting Task. |
Claude Cowork
Partly
Claude offers a connector directory and custom remote Model Context Protocol servers, with plugins for connected apps. Its Cowork docs do not describe webhook or event triggers that start work. |
| Models |
Task Machine
Yes
Auto is the default. For each stage of the work it chooses a model from the task, current model capabilities, pricing and your applicable budgets, and you can fix a specific model on an agent when you want to. |
Claude Cowork
Partly
You can select the model for a scheduled task, and the unified experience retains a model picker. Its docs do not describe automatic model selection per task or step. |
| Cloud or your own computer |
Task Machine
Yes
Run agents in Managed Cloud with nothing to install, or connect a Local Worker, a computer you control, for local files, tools and accounts. You choose where each agent runs. |
Claude Cowork
Yes
Team and Enterprise document cloud sessions and local virtual-machine sessions. New Pro, Max, and Ultra tasks run in the cloud only, so the local option depends on your plan and experience. |
| Your own subscription |
Task Machine
Yes
Sign in to your ChatGPT (Codex), Claude or GitHub Copilot subscription on a Local Worker, and the agents there use it instead of Task Machine's models. |
Claude Cowork
Yes
Cowork is included in paid Claude plans and uses the same plan allowance, so an existing Claude subscriber can delegate work without a separate Cowork subscription. |
| Pricing |
Task Machine
Yes
Usage based. From $29 a month before tax, the whole payment becomes usage that your workspace shares across people and agents, with no base fee and no trial. Larger monthly amounts lower the AI and Cloud rates. |
Claude Cowork
Yes
Pro costs $20 monthly or $200 annually. Max costs $100 monthly and Ultra $200 monthly. Enterprise costs $20 per seat monthly, billed annually with a 20-seat minimum, plus usage at API rates. |
| Correctness |
Task Machine
Yes
Every Task carries acceptance requirements, and each one gets a Pass, Fail or Uncertain check against the delivered work before a person reviews it. Workflow steps can add a verifier check that sends failed work back with feedback. You review the plan first, so the criteria exist before work starts. |
Claude Cowork
Yes
The Engineering plugin checks a pull request against its stated requirements and can inspect CI status and test results when source control is connected. These are optional plugin checks, rather than automatic checks on every delivered file. |
For software work
| What you compare | Task Machine | Claude Cowork |
|---|---|---|
| Code review rules |
Task Machine
Yes
Internal code review checks completed changes against the enabled rules of your repository. Rule discovery reads the repository and proposes rules, each screened against violating and valid examples first, and Task Machine suggests turning off a rule that agents keep dismissing. |
Claude Cowork
Yes
The Engineering plugin reviews code for security, performance, correctness and maintainability. With a knowledge-base connection, it checks changes against team coding standards and style guides. |
| Adversarial review |
Task Machine
Yes
When an approved plan has high sensitivity or a Critical review level, the change also gets an adversarial review. Two independent reviewers examine the changed files together for defects such as a broken caller or a duplicate charge on retry. Findings keep their reproduction steps, and a skipped or failed review never counts as a pass. |
Claude Cowork
Not published
Its public Cowork and Engineering plugin docs do not describe an independent second review of risky changes. Published sub-agent coordination and a code-review skill do not establish that review contract. |
| Risk rating |
Task Machine
Yes
Before final review, Merge risk rates the exact revision Low, Moderate or High, with notes on alignment, impact, verification, rollback cost and error detection, plus file references. It informs your decision and never merges for you. |
Claude Cowork
Partly
The code-review skill reports issue severity and an Approve, Request Changes or Needs Discussion verdict. Its docs do not describe an overall risk rating for the exact change before merge. |
| Pull requests |
Task Machine
Yes
Agents deliver against the exact reported revision, address review feedback and update the branch under your repository rules. Task Machine records its own approval of the exact commit before an agent may merge. |
Claude Cowork
Partly
The Engineering plugin accepts a pull-request link, fetches its diff through connected source control and reviews it. Its docs do not establish agents revising the branch in response to pull-request review feedback. |
A fact we cannot find or cannot check is left out, and prices can change after the date shown. Task Machine publishes this comparison and is an interested party. Claude Cowork is named only to identify it, and there is no relationship between the two companies. Has something changed? Tell us.
Who each one suits
Claude Cowork suits you if you want to hand Claude research, spreadsheets, presentations or file organization and review the finished work in the conversation. It uses your paid Claude plan rather than requiring another Cowork subscription.
Task Machine suits you if you want people and agents to own shared Tasks, connect work to measurable Goals and review decisions in one Inbox. Workflows define steps, branches and checks separately from the conversation that started the work.
You may stay with Claude Cowork if your Claude subscription, scheduled tasks, project memory and connected tools already cover the work you delegate. You can inspect and correct its saved memory, and configure connector permissions.
Conversations and shared work records
Claude Cowork is Anthropic's experience for delegating multi-step knowledge work. Anthropic is combining it with chat, so an account with the unified experience can ask a quick question or hand over a larger job in the same conversation. The change is rolling out across accounts and plans.
Claude creates a plan, breaks complex work into subtasks and lets you review its approach. Projects group related work with instructions and memory. Its Productivity plugin also maintains an editable task list. These are useful ways to keep context together, though the published task list does not establish shared human-and-agent ownership with a discussion and history on each item.
Task Machine gives a job a Task with its owner, plan, discussion, decisions and runs together. A Goal can have an agent lead and linked Metrics. Workflows follow defined steps, branch when conditions change and send failed verifier checks back with feedback.
Cowork's Engineering plugin is worth considering separately from Claude Code. It reviews pull-request diffs, checks team coding standards through a connected knowledge base and can inspect test results. Task Machine checks each Task's acceptance requirements before human review, with additional code-review and merge-risk checks for software work.
What the prices cover
Cowork is included in paid Claude plans. Direct website prices are Pro at $20 billed monthly or $200 billed annually, Max at $100 a month and Ultra at $200 a month. Team Standard costs $25 per seat billed monthly or $20 per seat per month billed annually. Enterprise costs $20 per seat per month billed annually, with a 20-seat minimum, plus usage at API rates. Cowork draws from your Claude plan's usage limits, and longer agentic work consumes more capacity than a short chat.
Task Machine is usage based, from $29 a month before tax. The whole payment becomes usage shared by your workspace, with no base fee. You keep 100% of your revenue, Task Machine takes no cut and never takes custody of your accounts. A Claude seat allowance and workspace usage cover different things, so compare your intended work rather than equating the two units.
Common questions
Is Cowork still a separate mode?
For accounts with the unified experience, Cowork's capabilities are available in any conversation. Accounts that have not moved over still have separate Chat and Cowork options.
Can Cowork work while my computer is off?
Cloud sessions can. Work that needs local files, apps or a desktop browser still needs Claude Desktop open. Team and Enterprise also document local sessions, while new individual-plan sessions run in the cloud.
Can both check work before I approve it?
Cowork's Engineering plugin can check a pull request against requirements and test results. Task Machine checks every Task's acceptance requirements and supports verifier steps in Workflows. Cowork's action-safety screening is a separate control from checking a result.
Can I keep using my Claude subscription?
Cowork already uses your paid Claude plan. Task Machine also supports connected AI subscriptions on a Local Worker, rather than requiring Task Machine models for that local work.