Hello and welcome back to The Mindshift AI Inference!

I was gone for a few days due to a nasty bug that I had to fight off. No, no I am not talking about about a computer bug but a real virus ;-)

While I was away, Anthropic dropped a small bomb in the form of a new tool called Claude Cowork. What is Cowork?

Essentially, it is a version of Claude Code, the coding assistant, that is optimized for use with text files, spreadsheets, and other documents.

While everyone is going bonkers about Cowork on LinkedIn I found a post by a Olivier Legris mentioning "Alter", another AI assistant that lives on your computer (Cowork is not really local and Alter only under certain circumstances).

Alter captures context from your screen, apps, and workflows in real-time. Think of it as an AI that can see what you're doing and help accordingly. It can summarize meetings, automate tasks across hundreds of apps, and even work offline with local models.

Key differences between Alter and Cowork:

- Access model: Cowork works with folders you explicitly share; Alter watches your entire screen/app context

- Scope: Cowork focuses on file operations (organizing, generating, editing documents); Alter is broader: meetings, dictation, cross-app automation

- AI models: Cowork uses Claude only; Alter supports 50+ models including GPT-5.2, Gemini, and local models via Ollama

- Price: Cowork requires Claude Max ($100-200/month); Alter has its own pricing with API key flexibility

- Privacy tradeoff: Cowork sees only what you give it; Alter sees everything on screen unless you specifically tell it to use a local model via Ollama.

Which one should you use? I'd say, try out both and see which one fits your workflow better. Certainly Alter has a more personalized and indie touch to it, which I like a lot. And of course, it is the option with the local option!

Have a great day!

Matthias