Turn Claude Cowork's built-in browser into your personal subscription auditor
Claude Cowork can now browse the web on its own. Here's how to use that feature to find and cancel subscriptions you're wasting money on.
Most people are paying for at least one subscription they forgot about. Maybe it's a Midjourney plan you haven't opened in three months. Maybe it's a niche SaaS tool you signed up for during a free trial that quietly rolled into a $49/month charge. The problem isn't that you don't care — it's that auditing every login, checking usage stats, and comparing plans across a dozen different dashboards is tedious enough that nobody actually does it.
That tedium is exactly what Claude Cowork's new built-in browser was built to eliminate.
Anthropic just shipped a browser directly inside the Cowork desktop app, and it changes what you can hand off to Claude entirely. Instead of just chatting about a task, Claude can now open websites on its own, log in, click around, pull real usage data, and report back — all without you touching your own browser. One of the most practical (and slightly addictive) ways to use this is turning Claude into a subscription auditor that checks your usage and spend across every tool you pay for, and tells you honestly whether it's worth keeping.
What exactly is Claude Cowork's built-in browser?
Claude now has a browser built into Claude Cowork on the desktop app, and when a task needs to use a website, a browser opens in the side panel and Claude navigates webpages, reads them, clicks, and types. You can find the feature directly inside Claude Cowork, Anthropic's agentic workspace built into the Claude desktop app.
The key distinction here is that this is a separate browser, not a window into the one you already use. This is Claude's browser, not a window into yours — it runs completely separate from your own Chrome, Safari, or Edge, and Claude cannot see your tabs, history, bookmarks, or saved passwords. If you want Claude to check your Midjourney usage or your ChatGPT billing page, it opens its own clean browser session to do it, rather than rummaging through tabs you already have open.
That said, you do need to give it access to actually log into your accounts. The first time the built-in browser opens, you'll see the option to stay signed in to your sites by importing cookies from your browser, and clicking the "Import cookies" button imports saved logins from your browser in one step, with imports working site by site so you choose which logins to bring over. Sensitive stuff is protected by default — banking, email, and single sign-on sites stay unchecked by default.
Why not just use Claude in Chrome instead?
Anthropic actually ships two different ways for Claude to use the web, and they're built for different situations. Claude in Chrome works in your own Chrome browser through the Claude in Chrome extension, on the page you're already on, with the accounts you're already signed in to, and you'd use it when the work is on a page in front of you. The built-in browser is different: Claude works in its own browser in the side panel, nothing to install, and it doesn't touch your tabs or logins — use it when you want to hand off the web part of a task and keep working.
In plain terms: if you're already looking at a spreadsheet in a browser tab and want Claude to help with that specific page, Claude in Chrome makes sense. But if you want to say "go check my subscriptions" and keep working on something else entirely, the built-in browser is the better fit — it targets a gap between connectors and browser extensions, since a connector provides a structured integration for a supported service while Claude in Chrome works through the tab you already have open, and Cowork's new browser handles the middle case where a task needs a website but not your existing tab or browser profile.
How do you set up a subscription audit?
Here's the actual workflow, based on how the feature works in practice.
Step 1: Open Claude Cowork on desktop. You'll need a Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise plan, since it's rolling out to Pro, Max, and Team plans in the Claude desktop app, and Enterprise admins can turn it on for their organization. Check Anthropic's Cowork overview documentation if you haven't used Cowork before — it explains the general agentic workflow before you get into browser-specific tasks.
Step 2: Import cookies for the accounts you want audited. When the built-in browser opens for the first time, choose which logins to bring over. If you're auditing something like an AI image tool or a productivity SaaS subscription, importing that specific login saves Claude from having to ask you to sign in manually mid-task.
Step 3: Write a clear audit prompt. Something like: "Go into my [Tool Name] account, check my usage over the last 30 days, compare it to what I'm being billed, and tell me honestly if this subscription is worth keeping based on how much I'm actually using it." The more specific you are about what "worth it" means to you — cost per use, features you actually touch, alternatives you're considering — the more useful the answer.
Step 4: Let Claude work in the side panel while you do something else. This is the actual point of the feature. This release removes the bottleneck of you being the hands — Claude can now complete multi-step web workflows in one instruction. You don't need to babysit it clicking through billing pages.
Step 5: Review the report and act on it. Cancel what's not earning its keep, keep what is, and move to the next tool on your list.
Can you check the details it's referencing?
Yes, and you should, at least the first few times. The built-in browser carries the same prompt injection risks as any AI agent that acts in a browser, where instructions hidden in a page try to redirect Claude, but it runs the same safeguards as Claude in Chrome including checks that review Claude's actions against what you asked for — those measures meaningfully reduce the risk but can't eliminate it, so Anthropic recommends starting on sites you trust. For a subscription audit on a billing dashboard you already trust, that risk is low, but it's worth reading Anthropic's safety guide for Cowork before you start feeding it logins for anything financial.
Can you schedule this to run automatically?
This is where the built-in browser gets genuinely useful instead of just convenient. Because it's now a native part of Cowork rather than something bolted on through an extension, you can set it up as a recurring task instead of something you manually kick off every time you remember to check.
Think about what that means practically: a monthly audit of every AI tool subscription, every SaaS tool, every recurring charge you're not sure you still need. Instead of doing a manual spring-cleaning pass on your bank statement once a year (or never), Claude checks in regularly and flags anything with usage that doesn't match the bill.
One thing worth knowing before you rely on scheduling: the Claude Desktop app must remain open and your computer must be awake for Claude to work on tasks, so scheduled Cowork tasks only run while your computer is awake and Claude Desktop is open — if your computer is asleep or the app is closed when a task is scheduled, Cowork skips the task and runs it once your computer wakes up. That's a real limitation if you're hoping for a fully hands-off, runs-in-the-cloud-while-you-sleep setup. It works best if you leave your desktop app open and your machine on, at least on the days you want the audit to run.
What other tasks make sense for this browser?
Subscription auditing is a great starting point because it's low-risk and immediately shows you money saved, but it's really just one example of the "middle case" this browser is built for. Anything that requires logging into a website, reading data, and reporting back — without needing a structured API connector — fits the pattern. Checking usage stats on a hosting plan, pulling numbers from an analytics dashboard, or comparing pricing tiers across a few competing tools are all reasonable next steps once you've tested it on something simple.
If you want a broader reference for what Cowork can do beyond browser tasks, Anthropic's introductory course on Cowork walks through setting up plugins and skills that extend what you can automate.
What should you try first?
Start small. Pick two or three subscriptions you already suspect you're not using enough — the ones you've thought about canceling but never got around to checking. Import the cookies, write a straightforward audit prompt, and let Claude give you an honest number. You might be surprised at how often the answer isn't what you expected, and you'll have a real, data-backed reason to cancel instead of just a gut feeling.
The bigger shift here isn't really about subscriptions. It's about the fact that Claude can now go do things on the web without you driving. Once that clicks, the list of tasks you'd never have bothered to automate starts looking a lot shorter.