Anthropic gives Claude voice mode the ability to act
Anthropic has upgraded Claude’s voice mode to execute tasks across workplace apps and converse in major European languages, marking a shift toward practical business utility over conversational realism.
Anthropic upgraded Claude’s voice mode on Thursday to run on its Opus and Sonnet models, allowing the assistant to move beyond answering questions to actively executing tasks.
Users can now connect workplace tools like Google Calendar, Slack, Notion and Canva. The assistant can reschedule meetings, summarize daily emails, draft replies and turn spoken pitches into formatted documents, always asking permission before taking action.
The feature previously ran exclusively on Haiku, Anthropic’s fastest but least capable model. While suitable for simple queries, users increasingly relied on voice to work through complex problems out loud, a task for which Anthropic acknowledged Haiku was quick “but not always deep.”
Opus and Sonnet are designed to act as smarter sounding boards, asking follow-up questions to push a user's thinking on tasks like weighing job offers or practising pitches. Users can switch models mid-conversation, with the system defaulting to the last model used in text.
The update also broadens Claude’s linguistic reach for European users. It now speaks French, German, Italian and both forms of Spanish. Users must manually instruct the assistant to switch languages, as automatic detection is not yet supported.
This release highlights a strategic divergence in the artificial intelligence market. While OpenAI recently gave ChatGPT a full-duplex voice that listens and talks simultaneously to sound more human, Anthropic has kept Claude’s voice strictly turn-based.
The company did not upgrade the underlying voice stack, meaning it lacks advanced interruption handling and feels less fluid than its rival. For businesses and investors tracking the sector, the split is telling. Anthropic is positioning its assistant as a workplace executor rather than a conversational partner.
“This release is focused on intelligence and tool access,” the company said, promising “more to share later this year.” The practical utility is reserved for paying customers. Free users are restricted to the Haiku model and a single connected app, while subscribers get the smarter models and the full suite of tools.
The upgraded voice mode is available in beta across web, desktop and mobile, though Anthropic notes it works best on a phone.
