{"id":628,"date":"2026-04-28T15:23:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T15:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/?p=628"},"modified":"2026-04-28T15:23:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T15:23:54","slug":"i-used-claudes-new-dispatch-feature-for-a-month-heres-everything-i-was-able-to-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/?p=628","title":{"rendered":"I used Claude’s new Dispatch feature for a month. Here’s everything I was able to do"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

One of the better aspects of being a journalist\u2014aside from the long hours, the bitter emails and Slack messages, and the wording and rewording of a simple phrase to ensure it reads just right\u2014is the ability to spend time tinkering with things. For the past month, I\u2019ve been tinkering with Dispatch, a new feature from Anthropic\u2019s Claude that essentially turns your phone into a remote control for your desktop. I\u2019ve used it to prepare for a meeting when my lunch was running over, and to pull up a lost file on my desktop without having to spend time looking for it myself. Here are some ways you can use it, too.<\/p>\n

\n

The first thing to know is that Dispatch is not really a new \u201cmodel\u201d but more of a workflow layer inside Claude Cowork that connects the Claude mobile app to the Claude Desktop app. This lets Claude run tasks on your computer with access to local files, connectors, plugins, and apps.\u00a0To get yourself started, you\u2019ll need the latest Claude Desktop and Mobile apps, a Max plan currently priced at $200 a month (the company said it will eventually be available on the cheaper, $20 a month Claude Pro plan), an active internet connection on both devices, and a computer that is awake with the Claude app open.<\/p>\n

Before we dive into this, it means if you\u2019re out and about, you have to keep your desktop active to use it\u2014let it go to sleep, and the whole remote control thing fails. <\/p>\n

In actuality, if you set your laptop or desktop to never sleep, it becomes a powerful tool wherever you are in the world, and could potentially mean you can indeed work from anywhere, even as your desktop remains sometimes miles away from your phone. This means no matter where you are, you can ask Claude to pull files, summarize documents, draft a memo, inspect a spreadsheet, prepare a meeting brief, or start a coding task, and Claude will route the work to the appropriate desktop session. Anthropic says development tasks run in Claude Code, knowledge-work tasks run in Cowork, and the results can come back as a spreadsheet, memo, comparison table, pull request, or other completed output.<\/p>\n

\u2018Quick pull\u2019 task<\/h2>\n

The most obvious use case is the \u201cquick pull\u201d task: find a document, summarize it, compare it against another file, or package it for a meeting. Anthropic says Claude Cowork can use local files, connected tools, skills, installed plugins, browser access, and computer use when completing tasks. It also makes Dispatch particularly useful for daily briefings: \u201cCheck my calendar, unread email, and Slack mentions, then send me a summary before my first meeting.\u201d By connecting Slack and Chrome to Claude, Anthropic can then list daily briefings that summarize Slack messages, emails, or calendar events as a common use for scheduled Cowork tasks.<\/p>\n

After spending time with the feature, the use cases that stood out were not sci-fi in nature. They were the annoying, ordinary things that pile up between meetings, errands, commutes, and moments away from a desk: find this file, summarize that thread, prepare tomorrow\u2019s meeting, pull the numbers, draft the follow-up, check whether something came in, and package it all so it is ready when you sit back down.<\/p>\n

Here are the coolest things Dispatch can do.<\/p>\n

Keep a continuous task thread<\/h2>\n

Dispatch is not just a pile of disconnected mobile prompts: a Dispatch thread doesn\u2019t reset, so Claude retains context from previous tasks and lets the user start on their phone, continue on their desktop, and pick up later in the same conversation. That sounds minor until you use it for multi-step work. You can ask Claude to find a file, then follow up from your phone with \u201cturn that into a briefing,\u201d and later sit down and ask for edits from the desktop. You can easily switch from smartphone to desktop and continue where you left off.<\/p>\n

Find files without digging through folders<\/h2>\n

One of the most practical uses is asking Claude to locate files on the computer, such as screenshots, PDFs, notes, decks, receipts, spreadsheets, or templates. Ask it to locate a specific downloaded file from hundreds, and it can (if you use the right keywords, of course). Instead of waiting until you\u2019re back at your desk to dig through Downloads, Drive, Desktop, and app folders, you can ask from your phone: \u201cFind the deck I used for the March client meeting,\u201d \u201cpull the invoice from last Friday,\u201d or \u201clook for screenshots that mention pricing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Summarize emails while away from your desk<\/h2>\n

Dispatch can also be used for email triage\u2014it successfully summarized my most recently received email, and I was able to cut my clutter down significantly when I finally sat down at my desktop. It wasn\u2019t just used to give me a summary of each and every email that entered my inbox, but rather (and perhaps, even more useful), it was able to pull out the important ones. It answered not only \u201csummarize my emails\u201d but also \u201ctell me what I need to know before I walk into the next meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Build a morning briefing<\/h2>\n

Dispatch becomes more powerful when paired with recurring Cowork tasks. Scheduled Cowork tasks can summarize Slack messages, emails, or calendar events from the past 24 hours, and can generate daily briefings, weekly reports, recurring research, file organization, and team updates. That means a practical setup is: schedule a daily briefing, then use Dispatch to ask follow-up questions from your phone. For example: \u201cWhat changed since the briefing?\u201d or \u201cWhich of today\u2019s meetings needs prep?\u201d<\/p>\n

Turn calendar clutter into meeting prep<\/h2>\n

One of the best uses is to ask Claude to prep for the next item on your calendar. Because Cowork can work with connected tools and local files, a Dispatch prompt can ask for the calendar event, relevant documents, prior notes, open tasks, and a short prep memo. You\u2019ve run out of the office for a quick lunch, but the line\u2019s running a bit long. A simple prompt turns the line into prep time. \u201cFor my 2 p.m. meeting, find the latest proposal, summarize the last email thread, list open questions, and draft three bullets I should raise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pull numbers from spreadsheets<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s pretty well suited to spreadsheet questions that do not require a full analytics project: \u201cWhat was revenue last month?\u201d \u201cHow many more disclosure reports listed this one thing?\u201d The feature can deliver outputs such as spreadsheets, memos, comparison tables, and pull requests directly to your phone from your desktop.<\/p>\n

Work with Notion databases<\/h2>\n

I ran several Notion-related tests, including summarizing the most recent note in a Notion notes database, listing notes saved that day, and adding a URL to a Notion notes database. It\u2019s a pretty good example of how Dispatch can be used as an assistant: capture and organize information while you are away from the desk. <\/p>\n

Retrieve something you already asked for<\/h2>\n

One underrated use is continuity, and Dispatch was able to show a screenshot I searched for earlier in the same session. You don\u2019t have to start from scratch if the task has context. You can say, \u201cSend me the screenshot from earlier,\u201d \u201cuse the same folder,\u201d or \u201cmake a table from the files you just found.\u201d<\/p>\n

Create comparison tables<\/h2>\n

Claude\u2019s Cowork model is built for outputs. In fact, Anthropic lists comparison tables among the kinds of results Claude can return from Dispatch-triggered work. That makes Dispatch useful for reviewing different proposals, comparing contracts, or summarizing research. A practical prompt: \u201cCompare the three contracts PDFs in my Downloads folder by price, scope, renewal terms, and cancellation language.\u201d<\/p>\n

Organize files while you are doing something else<\/h2>\n

File organization is one of the least glamorous yet most useful AI agent tasks. Dispatch can periodically sort, clean up, or process files in a designated folder. However, keep it constrained, because saying \u201cmove every file on my desktop\u201d is risky. \u201cFind PDFs in Downloads from this week, list what each appears to be, and ask before moving anything\u201d is a much better bet.<\/p>\n

Compile receipts and expense notes<\/h2>\n

Probably a major annoyance is uploading your receipts for reimbursement, but Dispatch handled that quickly. It analyzed receipts for expense reports and compiled summaries from multiple sources.<\/p>\n

Turn phone thoughts into desktop documents<\/h2>\n

Dispatch is especially good for moments when an idea arrives away from a keyboard. You can use Claude Code voice mode to brain-dump tasks and turn them into an interactive webpage, with Dispatch helping trigger the desktop workflow from the phone.<\/p>\n

Start coding work remotely<\/h2>\n

Dispatch can route development tasks differently from knowledge work tasks, meaning a mobile prompt can kick off or continue coding. The related Claude Code Remote Control feature goes further by connecting the Claude app or claude.ai\/code to a Claude Code session running locally, while keeping the tools and project configuration available on the machine.<\/p>\n

Use your local environment instead of a cloud workspace<\/h2>\n

The difference between local and cloud execution matters. Claude Code on the web, which runs on cloud infrastructure, while Claude Code\u2019s Remote Control is a local session that keeps running on your machine, and the web or mobile interfaces are just a window into that local session.<\/p>\n

Work in the background while you are away<\/h2>\n

The \u201cmagic\u201d of Dispatch is not that it answers instantly. It is that it can work while you are doing something else. It runs in the background and keeps working on research, coding, documents, and other tasks without continuous prompting, so you can get to more pressing work. <\/p>\n

Create weekly reports<\/h2>\n

Weekly reports are one of the cleanest recurring workflows. Scheduled Cowork tasks can compile data from Google Drive, spreadsheets, or connected tools into a formatted summary. The Dispatch layer adds mobile control: \u201cRun the weekly report now,\u201d \u201cadd a section on churn,\u201d or \u201ccompare this week with last week before I get back to my desk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Track recurring research<\/h2>\n

Scheduled Cowork tasks can track topics, competitors, or industry news on a regular cadence. That makes Dispatch useful for anyone following a beat, a market, a competitor, a policy issue, or a customer account. A simple prompt like \u201cRun the competitor watch now and tell me whether anything material changed today\u201d goes a long way.<\/p>\n

But it still fails in very normal ways<\/h2>\n

Dispatch is not yet a perfect assistant. It still had trouble opening Shortcuts or sending a screenshot on other mediums outside of the Claude app. And sometimes it was annoyingly so\u2014when I even just went to the downloads folder and picked out the file I needed in seconds. And while my coworkers thought it was neat to leave your laptop at the office (what a concept!), it was unnecessarily unnerving to always leave it unlocked for this to work\u2014let alone, always on, all the time. <\/p>\n

Maybe most of all, it still needs guardrails. IT was adamant that I use a tester laptop for this trial, and the privacy and security caveat is real. Even Anthropic\u2019s computer-use guidance says Claude may take screenshots to understand the screen and can see information visible in approved apps, including personal data, sensitive documents, or private information. The rule of thumb was to start with read-only, letting Claude search, summarize, compare, prepare, and draft, and then require approval before it sends, deletes, buys, files, posts, submits, or modifies anything important.<\/p>\n

The last thing it did? <\/p>\n

For this story,\u00a0<\/em>Fortune\u00a0journalists used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

#Claudes #Dispatch #feature #month #Heres<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the better aspects of being a journalist\u2014aside from the long hours, the bitter emails and Slack messages, and the wording and rewording of a simple phrase to ensure… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[361,536,537,538,539,540,98,80],"class_list":["post-628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-ai-agents","tag-anthropic","tag-claudes","tag-dispatch","tag-feature","tag-heres","tag-month","tag-service"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}