Where the work happens

When a job runs on Anthropic's or OpenAI's computers, it does not use your laptop. It uses a separate, isolated computer on the company's servers, set up just for your work. Usually this is a virtual computer: a complete computer simulated in software. Think of it as a borrowed desk in someone else's office: you can work there, but it is not your own.

• Claude gives each cloud work session (one stretch of work on Anthropic's computers) its own new, temporary computer. Nobody else uses it. When the session ends, that computer is deleted. Your conversation and the files Claude saved to your account are kept. Anything else left on that computer is gone. It is a clean desk every time.¹,²
• ChatGPT also runs this work on separate, protected computers. It may reuse the same computer from one task to the next, or replace it but keep the saved work, so it can pick up unfinished work later.³

Two things follow. First, the borrowed computer cannot reach your laptop by itself. Files you attach or upload are copied to the company's servers, so the work can use them after you close your laptop. Files that stay only on your laptop are used through the desktop app, while it is open. With Claude, it reads them from folders you have allowed. With ChatGPT, the steps that need them run on your own computer. Second, anything you want to keep must come back to you as a saved file. Do not expect it to stay on the borrowed computer.