Product1 publisher3 min readPublished
The Project button hands ChatGPT and Claude every file in the folder you point at
Anthropic charges $20 a month for Cowork's file work and computer control while OpenAI gives folder access away free. That pricing gap means the capability most likely to spread across managed laptops is the one that never generates an invoice.
The Product Desk · Product desk
What happened
- OpenAI has turned its Codex app from a specialised coding tool into a "super app" for all ChatGPT users, replacing the old ChatGPT desktop app in the process, according to Fast Company.
- Anthropic's Claude desktop app is now the home of Cowork, a tool built to work directly with the files sitting on the user's own computer.
- Google's Windows and Mac apps add Share Screen and Share Window controls that let Gemini watch other apps live, where Claude and ChatGPT depend on screenshots that must be retaken.
Compiled by The Product DeskSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- decision The rollout question stops being which model to license and becomes which folder a user may nominate, and that grant is made in a chat box on a laptop rather than in a procurement meeting.
- cost The priced capability gets a budget owner and a renewal conversation; the free equivalent on the same machine reaches the same local files with nobody's name against it.
- exposure A single toggle under Settings > General is enough to let an assistant drive the cursor, so the blast radius on a managed device is set by whoever happens to be sitting at it.
- constraint This evidence covers consumer-facing switches only, which means an IT team cannot size the exposure or write policy from it and has to go back to the vendors for admin-side answers.
Fast Company's reviewer reports that Codex and Google's desktop apps open a chat box over whatever is on screen with Option+Space on a Mac or Alt+Space on Windows, and that Claude answers to a double-tap of the Option key [4]. That keystroke is the entire onboarding, with no ticket or training step involved.
The pitch is faster access to a chat box, but the mechanism underneath is a permission grant: the Project button in both Claude and ChatGPT points the assistant at every file in a folder the user nominates, and Fast Company's writer aimed it at his Downloads folder to have files sorted into subfolders and redundant ones deleted [6].
Price is where the review gets useful to anyone running a fleet. Claude's file work rides on Cowork at $20 a month per person, and Computer Use carries the same subscription requirement once a user flips it on under Settings > General [7][10]. ChatGPT's file management costs nothing [7]. Twenty dollars a month is $240 a seat a year [13]; put twenty-five people on it and finance sees a $6,000 line item and asks who owns it [14]. The free path to the same local folder produces no invoice and no renewal date to review.
Control changes the failure mode. These apps can move a virtual cursor, open pages in a browser, click buttons inside other apps and type into text fields [8]. Fast Company's writer asked ChatGPT to optimise its own settings for privacy; it opened ChatGPT in a browser tab, walked the settings pages and turned up a couple of targeted-ads options he had left alone [9]. It worked, and it worked because the assistant was operating inside his authenticated session, clicking a settings screen as him.
Everything described in this material is user-facing. The toggle sits in Settings > General [10], the folder is chosen inside the app [6], and screen sharing is a button in the window [5]. Nothing here addresses administrator policy, device management, or whether an organisation can stop any of it [15]. Google is a step behind on the control piece, according to Fast Company, which found no Gemini equivalent but notes that computer use went into the Gemini 3.5 Flash model in June and expects the capability to become table stakes across these apps [11]. Fast Company also flags the plainer consequence of daily use: even at the chat level, these apps are a form of lock-in [12].
The sort that helps on Monday has two axes. Does the assistant change state on the machine, meaning write files or click buttons, or does it only read the screen. And does the capability generate an invoice. Read-only and paid is the easy cell. Write and paid is expensive and visible, which is why it gets a budget owner. Write and free is the cell that arrives on a laptop without anyone approving it, and on this evidence that cell holds ChatGPT's folder access and its cursor control. Whatever lands there needs an owner who is neither the vendor nor the person who pressed Alt+Space.
What to watch
- Whether Anthropic or OpenAI publish administrator controls for folder access and computer use, and which subscription tier those controls land in.