AI cowork app FAQ

A desktop AI agent that operates on your actual work rather than answering questions about it — reading and writing real files, taking multiple steps unsupervised, running commands or applications, and continuing when your attention moves elsewhere. A chatbot produces text about your work; a cowork app changes your work.

Increasingly it is not a clean line, because the ChatGPT desktop app now includes Codex and Work modes that do exactly this. Plain ChatGPT chat is not a cowork app. The ChatGPT desktop app, in the right mode, is.

For Claude Cowork, Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity's Personal Computer, no — they take plain-language instructions. Codex genuinely is a developer tool and assumes familiarity with repositories, diffs and terminals.

Almost never. The models run in the cloud even when the interface is a desktop app. The exception is local-model software such as Msty, which runs models on your own hardware and works fully offline — at the cost of being bounded by your machine's capability.

Entry points as of August 2026: Codex is included on every ChatGPT plan including Free, with Go at $8 and Plus at $20. Microsoft Copilot has a free tier, with Microsoft 365 Personal at $9.99, Family at $12.99 and Premium at $19.99. Claude Cowork requires a paid Claude plan from $20. Perplexity requires Pro at $20 or Max at $200, plus credits.

Claude Cowork. Flat seat price, no credit system layered on top. Perplexity is the opposite — the subscription buys access and the work is metered at 100 credits to the dollar, with no monthly allocation on Pro.

Retired, and folded into Microsoft 365 Premium at $19.99/month. Any page still listing Copilot Pro at $20 is out of date.

Codex on the ChatGPT free tier and Microsoft Copilot's free tier are both genuinely usable. Claude Cowork and Perplexity Computer have no free tier at all.

If it was Codex, most likely the shared pool — OpenAI states Codex draws from the same allowance as ChatGPT Work, ChatGPT for Excel and Workspace Agents. If it was Perplexity, the Pro tier includes no monthly credits, only a one-time 4,000-credit bonus that expires after 30 days.

All four. Microsoft Copilot obviously. Claude Cowork since April 2026. Codex natively since March 2026. Perplexity's Personal Computer since 28 July 2026.

All four, though Microsoft's Mac app is essentially the chat client plus Vision — there is no macOS equivalent of Copilot Actions.

Poorly served. Codex's CLI has long worked on Linux and its desktop app entered preview on 11 August 2026. Claude offers a Linux download but computer use is unavailable there. Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity Personal Computer: no.

No. That was true only between January and April 2026.

Codex cloud tasks, Claude Cowork cloud sessions and Perplexity Computer all continue. Microsoft Copilot does not. One important caveat: a Cowork cloud session can only reach your local files while the desktop app is open and connected.

With care and on copies at first. Each sandboxes differently — Cowork to folders you explicitly grant, Codex to a workspace with network access off by default, Microsoft's Copilot Actions to Documents, Downloads, Desktop and Pictures. All of them can modify and delete inside their permitted scope.

Content the agent reads containing instructions that override yours — a poisoned webpage, document or email. Anthropic states the risk is "non-zero" despite mitigations, and Microsoft documents it in its own Windows security guidance. It is the most serious open problem in the category.

You are. Anthropic states plainly that users are responsible for all actions Claude takes, including financial transactions. No vendor in this comparison indemnifies you.

Yes, and all four have business tiers, but check three things first: whether cloud execution is on by default (it is for Claude Team, off for Enterprise), what your existing permission sprawl will expose, and whether the agentic features you want are actually available on business plans — Claude's computer use, for instance, excludes Team and Enterprise entirely.

Where do your files live? Microsoft 365 points to Copilot. A git repository points to Codex. Loose files on your disk point to Claude Cowork or Perplexity. That question decides it more often than any feature comparison.

Cursor is an editor you work inside; Codex is an agent you delegate to. Both are $20/month at the entry tier, and many developers run both — Codex ships an official Cursor extension.

Predictability against reach. Cowork is flat-rate and sandboxed to granted folders. Perplexity's Personal Computer drives native applications and the browser but bills by consumption.

No. Separate products, separate licences, separate bills. Buying one gives you nothing of the other.

Quarterly at least. Between February and August 2026 alone: Copilot Pro was retired, the standalone Codex app was discontinued, GitHub Copilot moved to usage-based billing, Microsoft raised suite prices, and Perplexity extended Computer from Max-only to Pro. That includes re-checking this page — the review date is at the top for exactly that reason.