# Claude Tag in Slack vs handoffs inside your assistant: which one when

Claude Tag puts one shared Claude in a Slack channel. A handoff gives a task to one person's own assistant. How they differ and work together.

## The short answer

Claude Tag puts one shared Claude into a Slack channel, where anyone can tag it. A handoff gives one task to one person, inside their own assistant, with the files, a deadline and a status. Use Claude Tag when the work belongs to the channel. Use a handoff when it belongs to one person.

They are not rivals. One is a colleague everyone in the room can ask. The other is how a piece of work moves from your desk to someone else's. Most teams that work in Slack and in Claude will end up wanting both, for different moments.

## What Claude Tag is

Anthropic announced Claude Tag on 23 June 2026. It is in beta for Claude Team and Enterprise plans and works in Slack. Claude joins a channel as a member of the team, and anyone in that channel can tag it with @Claude to ask for help.

A few more points from the announcement and the coverage around it:

- It replaced the older Claude in Slack app.
- Work Claude does in channels is billed to the organisation, not to the person who tagged it.
- Anthropic plans to expand it beyond Slack.

Source: [Anthropic: Introducing Claude Tag](https://www.anthropic.com/news/introducing-claude-tag), last verified 2026-10-15.

Source: [9to5Mac: coverage of Claude Tag](https://9to5mac.com/?p=1058029), last verified 2026-10-15.

Source: [Pulse 2.0: Anthropic introduces Claude Tag](https://pulse2.com/anthropic-introduces-claude-tag-for-team-collaboration/), last verified 2026-10-15.

The important word is *shared*. There is one Claude in the channel, and the channel is the audience. Whoever asks, everyone in the channel can see the question and the answer. That is the point: the team works in the open, and Claude works with them there.

## What a personal handoff is

A handoff starts somewhere else: in your own chat with your own assistant. You have spent an hour in Claude on a client brief or a contract. You have uploaded files, made decisions and agreed dates. Now someone else has to carry it on.

With Colle, you say it in one sentence:

> Ask Rachel to check the contract terms, we need them back by the 20th.

Your assistant finds Rachel in your company, writes the summary, records the deadline as a fact and attaches the file. Rachel gets a notification: who sent it, what it is and by when. She accepts it with one click, asks her own assistant "what did I get?" and carries on. Her assistant can be Claude or ChatGPT.

The work now has an owner. It also has a status (sent, accepted, done, returned or overdue) that you can check without asking. If something is missing, Rachel returns it with a reason. If you sent it to the wrong person, you recall it. More detail on [how it works](/how-it-works/).

## Side by side

| | Claude Tag in Slack | A handoff with Colle |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Who acts | One shared Claude, tagged by anyone in the channel | Each person's own assistant: the sender's to send, the recipient's to continue |
| Where the work happens | In a Slack channel, in front of its members | Inside the sender's and the recipient's own assistant chats |
| Ownership and status | The conversation lives in the channel; people agree among themselves who does what next | A named recipient (up to five) or a team space, with a deadline and a status: sent, accepted, done, returned, overdue |
| Files | Not in the facts we verified; check Anthropic's documentation | Original files up to 25 MB travel with the handoff and stay on the case, with descriptions you can search |
| Works with ChatGPT | No ChatGPT side: everyone in the channel uses the same shared Claude | Yes. Send from Claude, continue in ChatGPT, or the other way round (sending from ChatGPT needs Business or Enterprise) |
| Who pays | Channel work is billed to the organisation | €15 per active person per month, or €12.50 billed yearly, excluding VAT |

The two rows that matter most are the first and the third. Claude Tag answers "who can ask Claude here?" with *anyone in the channel*. A handoff answers "who is responsible for this now?" with *one named person*.

## When to use which

### Scenario 1: a question the whole channel should see

Your launch channel is discussing a delayed shipment. Someone wants a first draft of the customer email, and the rest of the team wants to see it and react. This belongs in the channel. Tag @Claude there, and everyone sees the request and the answer in the same place. Nobody needs to own a task yet. **Use Claude Tag.**

### Scenario 2: a task with one owner and a deadline

You have negotiated a contract in your own Claude chat. The price is €12,400, the client signs by the 20th, and Rachel in legal needs to check the terms. Posting the whole thing in a channel would expose the details to everyone in it and still leave no owner. What Rachel needs is the draft, the price, the date and a clear "this is yours now". **Use a handoff.**

### Scenario 3: the context is in your private chat, or the recipient uses ChatGPT

James is taking over the Nordlit account. Your call notes, the decisions and the next call date are in your own Claude conversation, not in Slack. James uses ChatGPT. Your private chat is not in any channel, and James would not continue the work there anyway. Say "Send James my call notes, he takes over the Nordlit account", and he picks it up in his own assistant. **Use a handoff.**

A rule of thumb: if the answer is useful to everyone in the channel, ask in the channel. If the work needs one person to finish it, hand it off.

## Using both

They fit together on the same piece of work. A common shape looks like this:

1. **Discuss in the channel.** The team talks through the problem in Slack and tags @Claude for a draft, a comparison or a first answer.
2. **Decide who owns it.** Someone says "Rachel, can you take this?" in the thread.
3. **Hand it off.** The person who has the context in their own assistant sends Rachel a handoff: the summary, the facts and the files, with a deadline.
4. **Track it outside the noise.** The channel moves on. The handoff keeps its status, so nobody has to scroll back to find out whether Rachel accepted it or finished it.

Colle does not replace Slack, and it does not replace Claude Tag. It covers the moment when work stops being a conversation and becomes someone's job. For a shorter, table-only version of this comparison, see [Colle vs Claude Tag](/compare/claude-tag/). For the wider picture of the word "handoff", read [AI handoff vs agent handoff vs team handoff](/blog/ai-handoff-vs-agent-handoff-vs-team-handoff/).

## FAQ

### Which Claude plans include Claude Tag?

According to Anthropic's announcement, Claude Tag is in beta for Team and Enterprise plans. Check the announcement for changes since we last verified it on 15 October 2026.

### Does Colle work inside Slack like Claude Tag does?

No. Colle works inside each person's own assistant, through the Colle connector in [Claude](/integrations/claude/) or ChatGPT. The recipient gets a notification in their browser or on their phone and continues in their own chat.

### What if the person taking over was not in the channel?

That is a good case for a handoff. A channel only reaches its members. A handoff goes to a named colleague, or to a team space where one member picks it up, and it carries everything they need. If you are on the receiving end, here is how to [continue a colleague's Claude work](/blog/continue-a-colleagues-claude-work/).

### What does Colle cost next to Claude Tag?

Colle is €15 per active person per month, or €12.50 billed yearly, excluding VAT. People who only receive notifications do not pay. Each person keeps their own Claude or ChatGPT subscription. See [pricing](/pricing/).

[Join the Colle pilot](https://www.trycolle.com/#pilot)

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Canonical page: https://www.trycolle.com/blog/claude-tag-vs-handoffs/ · Last updated: 2026-10-15