When Anthropic announced Monday that it was embedding nine workplace applications directly inside Claude, transforming its AI chatbot into what I earlier described as a "workplace command center," Asana was among the headliners.
But while the broader launch signals a new era of AI-native productivity tools, Asana's participation reflects a deeper strategic bet — one that positions the project management company not as an AI competitor, but as the essential context layer that makes any AI model more useful.
In an exclusive interview with VentureBeat, Arnab Bose, Asana's Chief Product Officer, explained the thinking behind the partnership and why the company chose to embrace external AI providers rather than build proprietary models.
"The AI landscape is advancing at a breakneck pace," Bose said. "We believe our customers are best served when they have access to the latest, most powerful reasoning capabilities from best-in-class providers like Anthropic, rather than being locked into a single, proprietary model that may fall behind quickly."
The integration arrives at a pivotal moment for Asana: the company is navigating a leadership transition after co-founder Dustin Moskovitz's retirement, competing against rivals racing to embed AI into productivity software, and betting that its proprietary "Work Graph" — the company's mapping of how tasks, people, and goals connect inside organizations — can differentiate it in an increasingly crowded market.
Asana's chief product officer argues that raw AI power matters less than business context
The strategic logic Bose outlined goes beyond simply offering Claude users another tool to connect. At its core, Asana is making a bet about where value will accrue in the AI era — and the company believes context will matter more than raw model capability.
"An LLM in isolation is context-starved," Bose told VentureBeat. "It knows how to write, but it doesn't know your business—your goals, your knowledge, your specific approvals, or your historical relationships. Asana provides the scaffolding—the Work Graph data model—that grounds those external models in the reality of how your company actually operates."
It's a framing that positions Asana as essential infrastructure rather than a replaceable application. If Bose is right, then even as AI models from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google grow more powerful, they will remain fundamentally limited without deep integration into how organizations actually function.
"Most errors happen because models are context-starved," Bose said. "Asana solves this with context that is unique to each business."
The argument has implications beyond Asana. It suggests a future where AI capability becomes increasingly commoditized, while the companies that control rich organizational data — project histories, approval workflows, team relationships — become the essential partners that make AI useful in enterprise settings.
The integration transforms natural language conversations into structured project plans
In practice, the Claude integration allows users to create and manage Asana projects entirely through natural conversation. When a user connects their Asana account via OAuth authentication, Claude gains the ability to read project data, create new tasks, and build entire project structures based on natural language instructions.
A marketing team discussing a product launch in Claude can simply say: "Create a Q2 product launch project with phases for creative development, partner outreach, press kit, and launch day." Claude then generates the project structure, complete with sections and tasks, which the user can review before pushing it live to Asana.
"When you use Claude to explore a new initiative, like brainstorming a campaign structure, outlining a project plan, or mapping out a cross-functional launch, you can turn that thinking into real, structured work in Asana without breaking your flow," the company said in its press release announcing the integration.
The synchronization runs in real time. Changes made through Claude appear immediately in Asana, and status updates from Asana can be pulled into Claude conversations for on-the-fly reporting. Users can ask questions like "What's behind schedule in our marketing campaigns right now?" and receive answers grounded in their actual project data.
Human approval remains mandatory before Claude can create or modify any work in Asana
One of the key design decisions in the integration is a strict requirement for human oversight. Bose emphasized that Claude cannot act autonomously within Asana — every consequential action requires explicit user approval.
"Our architecture follows a strict human-in-the-loop philosophy where AI actions—from drafting project plans to summarizing risks—has a human in the loop to course correct, check quality, and ultimately give final sign-off when working with AI," Bose told VentureBeat. "Users review and approve before tasks are created and projects are built."
When asked whether Claude could potentially access projects or tasks that a user wouldn't normally have permission to see, Bose was direct: "No. Users need to authenticate via OAuth with their Asana credentials to use this integration, and Claude respects their permissions and access."
The approach is an increasingly common pattern in enterprise AI — giving artificial intelligence significant capabilities while maintaining human control over final decisions. It addresses one of the core anxieties around AI in workplace settings: the fear that automated systems will make mistakes that propagate through organizations before anyone notices.
When asked about audit capabilities for enterprise administrators, Bose said admins can monitor usage information about Claude in Asana's Admin App Management portal, with deeper audit log visibility potentially coming based on customer feedback.
Asana is building integrations with ChatGPT and Google Gemini to avoid platform lock-in
Notably, Asana is not betting exclusively on Claude. Bose emphasized the company's commitment to working with multiple AI providers, positioning Asana as a neutral platform that works with whichever AI systems its customers prefer.
"Our philosophy is to meet users where they want to work," Bose said. "We are building the work platform for today and the future which means being the best front-end for any vendor's agents."
He confirmed that Asana offers "foundational connectors" with both ChatGPT and Google Gemini and is working to deepen those integrations. The company is also committed to emerging industry standards for AI agent interoperability, including the Agent-to-Agent protocol and MCP.
"We want to be the best front-end for agents from any vendor," Bose said, describing a vision where Asana becomes the coordination layer through which various AI systems — whether from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, or others — can operate within enterprise workflows.
This multi-provider approach differs from companies that have tied themselves exclusively to a single AI partner. It reflects both a pragmatic recognition that the AI landscape remains volatile and a strategic bet that Asana's value lies in its data and workflow capabilities rather than any particular AI model.
The announcement comes as Asana navigates a major leadership transition
The Claude integration arrives as Asana navigates significant organizational change. Dustin Moskovitz, the company's co-founder and longtime CEO, retired earlier this year after announcing his departure during Asana's fourth-quarter earnings report in March. Moskovitz's departure triggered immediate market reaction, with Asana's stock dropping more than 25 percent in after-hours trading following the announcement.
The company subsequently hired Dan Rogers — formerly CEO of software startup LaunchDarkly and previously president of Rubrik and marketing chief at ServiceNow — to take over as chief executive. Rogers started in July, with Moskovitz transitioning to the role of board chairman.
In a recent appearance on the Stratechery podcast, Moskovitz reflected candidly on his tenure. "I don't like to manage teams, and it wasn't my intention when we started Asana," he said. "I'd intended to be more of a independent or head of engineering or something again. Then one thing led to another and I was CEO for 13 years and I just found it quite exhausting."
Moskovitz — who co-founded Facebook alongside Mark Zuckerberg before leaving to start Asana in 2008 — retains approximately 39 percent of outstanding Asana shares. He said he plans to focus more on his philanthropic endeavors, including Good Ventures and Open Philanthropy, which lists "potential risks from advanced AI" among its focus areas.
Bose envisions AI handling orchestration while humans retain control over strategic decisions
When asked about the long-term trajectory of AI in Asana, Bose outlined a vision that balances automation with human judgment — what he described as a "self-driving" organization where humans nonetheless remain at the wheel.
"Our vision is for customers to work however suits them best, alongside AI agents that actually have the context to be helpful and productive," he said. "But the goal is not for agents to make important decisions on their own. That is where humans provide value: having the judgment, relationships, and nuance to make complex decisions."
He described a future in which AI handles "orchestration" — spotting patterns, flagging risks, managing follow-ups — while humans retain authority over strategy and trade-offs. As an example, Bose pointed to Asana's AI Teammates feature, which the company introduced in beta last year.
"Asana AI Teammates — built on the Work Graph, so they understand who is doing what, by when, and why — can flag that three teams are behind on dependencies for a launch and draft a mitigation plan," Bose said. "But a human reviews it, adjusts based on business priorities, and makes the call on what happens next."
The question is whether that boundary will hold as AI capabilities advance. Anthropic and OpenAI are both racing to build more capable "agentic" systems that can execute multi-step tasks with less human oversight. If those systems become reliable enough, the human-in-the-loop requirement may shift from necessity to preference — a transition Asana appears to be preparing for, even as it emphasizes human control today.
How to access the Asana integration in Claude
The Asana integration in Claude is available immediately to all Asana customers who have a paid Claude subscription. Users can connect Asana through Claude's app directory or request that their administrator enable the integration for their workspace.
The interactive app feature is available on Claude's web and desktop applications for Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise subscribers. Once connected, users can mention Asana in any Claude conversation to start creating projects, assigning tasks, or pulling status updates from their existing work.
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