Claude Becomes More Than a Chatbot With Anthropic’s New Agent System

In Today’s edition:

1. Anthropic Turns Claude Into a Digital Coworker With New AI Agents

2. PMNA TUTORIAL: How to Automate Release & Launch Communications with Make.com

3. Trello Outage Leaves Teams Locked Out at Start of Workday

4. TOOL REVIEW: One Elsewhere is a Minimalist Productivity App that Trains Deep Focus by Eliminating Phone Distractions

5. Exciting Career Opportunities for Product and Project Management Professionals

Reading time: 4 minutes

HEADLINE NEWS

Anthropic Turns Claude Into a Digital Coworker With New AI Agents

Anthropic has unveiled Claude Cowork, a new AI agent feature that brings the automation power of its developer-oriented Claude Code tool to a broader audience. Designed to work through the Claude macOS app, Cowork lets the AI access and manage files locally using plain-language instructions.

• New feature launch: Anthropic introduced Claude Cowork as a research preview to enhance productivity beyond coding tasks.

• Folder-based access: Users designate a local folder that Claude can read, edit, or create files within.

• Non-technical use: Cowork brings agentic automation to non-developers, unlike the more technical Claude Code.

• Task examples: Claude can reorganize downloads, extract data from images, or draft reports from scattered notes.

• Safety risks: Anthropic warns about potential dangers such as accidental deletions and prompt injection attacks.

With Cowork, Anthropic is pushing Claude closer to a human-like assistant that can independently handle complex workflows without coding expertise, positioning it against other agentic AI systems. While promising for everyday work and productivity, the feature’s risks and current macOS-only, subscription-locked availability suggest it still has limitations before mainstream adoption. Read More

PMNA TUTORIAL: How to Automate Release & Launch Communications with Make.com

Release and launch communications often fail because updates are manual, inconsistent, or shared too late. This workflow shows how product and project managers can use Make with GitHub or Jira to automatically announce releases through Slack and Email the moment they happen. The result is faster alignment, clearer messaging, and less coordination overhead for PMs.

You’ll learn to:

• Define a clear release trigger in Jira or GitHub

• Create a Make scenario to watch for release events

• Filter events to ensure only real releases trigger notifications

• Pull in release context such as titles, notes, and links

• Structure a consistent release message format

• Send internal release announcements via Slack

• Notify stakeholders or leadership via Email

• Log each release automatically in Notion or Google Docs

• Route messages based on release type or audience

• Add safeguards to prevent duplicates and failures

Why it matters:

Automating release and launch communications removes one of the most fragile parts of product delivery. By turning releases into reliable, system-driven updates, PMs ensure everyone stays informed without manual effort. It’s a scalable, low-maintenance workflow that improves trust, visibility, and execution speed across teams.

FULL TUTORIAL HERE

Trello Outage Leaves Teams Locked Out at Start of Workday

Trello, the popular project management tool used by millions worldwide, experienced a significant outage early on Monday morning, putting it offline for many users as the workweek began. The disruption left people unable to access boards and collaborate through the web interface, prompting frustration at the start of the working day.

• Service outage: Trello went down on Monday morning at the start of the working week.

• Work disruption: Users reported they couldn’t log into the service or load their boards.

• Wide usage impact: The tool is widely used for project tracking in workplaces and personal tasks.

• Status page mismatch: Some reports suggest the official status page showed systems as operational despite outages.

• Unclear cause: The exact reason for the outage has not been confirmed publicly.

The outage highlights how dependent many teams and individuals have become on cloud-based collaboration tools like Trello to start their workdays smoothly. While disruptions like this can be temporary, they underscore the challenges of maintaining reliable access for large user bases and the importance of clear communication from service providers during outages. Read More

One Elsewhere is a Minimalist Productivity App that Trains Deep Focus by Eliminating Phone Distractions

One Elsewhere is a minimalist focus app designed to help users reclaim deep attention by encouraging them to physically step away from their devices. Instead of timers, task lists, or notifications, it turns uninterrupted focus into a simple challenge: start a session, put your phone down, and stay away. The longer you remain undistracted, the further your virtual journey progresses, reinforcing presence through calm, intentional design.

• Touch-to-End Focus Sessions – Any interaction with your device instantly ends a session, enforcing true, interruption-free focus.

• Gamified Space-Flight Progression – Focus time is visualized as a journey through space, turning discipline into a motivating, low-pressure challenge.

• No Timers or Notifications – Eliminates countdown anxiety and reminder fatigue by removing traditional productivity mechanics entirely.

• Minimalist, Distraction-Free Interface – Designed to fade into the background so attention stays on work, not the app itself.

• Achievements and Personal Stats – Tracks best runs and milestones to encourage consistency without social comparison or performance stress.

For project managers, focus is often fragmented by constant pings, context switching, and decision fatigue. One Elsewhere offers a practical way to protect uninterrupted thinking time—whether for planning sprints, reviewing deliverables, or solving complex problems—without adding another tool to manage. Its simplicity makes it ideal for intentional deep-work blocks, helping project managers lead with clarity, make better decisions, and maintain control in environments where distraction is the default.

TOOL LINK

Exciting Career Opportunities for Product and Project Management Professionals

• Portfolio Product Manager @ Lenovo

  📍 Morrisville, NC.

• Senior Project Manager @ Teleflex

  📍 Morrisville, NC.

• Client Project Manager @ Wells Fargo

  📍 Winston-Salem, NC.

• TFA Project Manager @ Siemens Energy

  📍 Selma, NC.

• Senior Product Manager, Oncology @ Labcorp

  📍 Durham, NC.

THAT’S A WRAP