Welcome to a groundbreaking moment in the world of artificial intelligence! Today, we unveil the next generation of Claude models from Anthropic: Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4. These are not just upgrades; they are revolutionary tools designed to redefine what AI can do in coding, reasoning and building powerful AI agents. If you’re a developer, researcher, or business innovator, this release is going to change how you think about digital assistance.

What Is Claude?

Claude is a family of AI models developed by Anthropic, built to understand, reason and collaborate intelligently with users. It’s already known for its user-friendly interaction style, strong reasoning skills, and safety-first design. Claude models are widely used in coding, research, creative writing, and professional support. Previous versions like Claude Sonnet 3.7 set high standards for practical usage, and now, the bar has been raised even higher.

Claude Opus 4 & Claude Sonnet 4

With Claude Opus 4, Anthropic delivers the world’s best coding model to date. Opus 4 achieves 72.5% on SWE-bench and 43.2% on Terminal-bench, setting new records for coding performance. It handles long-running, complex tasks with sustained focus for several hours, a feat no other model has matched. Opus 4 shines in agent workflows, helping developers solve tough problems, understand complex codebases, and build intelligent automation.

Claude Sonnet 4, on the other hand, is a massive improvement over Claude Sonnet 3.7. It combines high accuracy, precision, and responsiveness with better control and steerability. Sonnet 4 scores 72.7% on SWE-bench, showing it’s not far behind Opus in raw capability but is designed to balance speed and practicality, especially for everyday use cases.

Key Features of Claude Opus 4 and Sonnet 4

  1. Extended Thinking with Tool Use (Beta): Both models now support “extended thinking” they can pause, use tools like web search, then resume reasoning with more accurate answers.
  2. Parallel Tool Use: They can use multiple tools at the same time for faster and more complex results.
  3. Improved Memory: Developers can give Claude access to local files, allowing it to create and update “memory files” that help it retain knowledge across tasks. Claude remembers key details, improving consistency and performance.
  4. Better Instruction Following: Both models are significantly better at understanding and following complex instructions with fewer shortcuts or workarounds.
  5. New API Capabilities: Developers now get access to:
    • Code execution tools
    • MCP connector
    • Files API
    • Prompt caching for up to one hour
  6. Two Response Modes: Instant mode for quick tasks and extended thinking for deeper reasoning, giving you control depending on the task.
  7. Pricing: Still affordable and consistent with previous versions:
    • Claude Opus 4: $15 (input) / $75 (output) per million tokens
    • Claude Sonnet 4: $3 (input) / $15 (output) per million tokens

Claude Code: Now Available for All

Claude Code is out of preview and is now generally available! It’s a tool designed to bring Claude’s power directly into your development workflows. It supports:

  • Native integrations with VS Code and JetBrains IDEs, showing suggestions inline.
  • Background tasks via GitHub Actions.
  • A full Claude Code SDK, allowing you to build custom AI agents.
  • GitHub bot support: Tag Claude on pull requests to respond to reviews, fix errors, or edit files directly.

Real-World Validation

Claude Opus 4 and Sonnet 4 are already impressing top tech companies:

  • Cursor: Calls Opus 4 a major breakthrough for coding.
  • Replit: Sees a big leap in multi-file code editing.
  • GitHub: Integrating Sonnet 4 into GitHub Copilot’s new coding agent.
  • Rakuten: Successfully ran Opus 4 for 7 hours on a refactor task.
  • Augment Code: Reports higher precision and more surgical edits.
  • Sourcegraph: Notes Claude stays on track longer and understands complex problems better.

Claude Opus 4 vs Claude Sonnet 4

FeatureClaude Opus 4Claude Sonnet 4
Coding Score (SWE-bench)72.5%72.7%
Task Duration SupportLong-running (hours)Medium to Long
Ideal ForAdvanced coding, research, AI agentsEveryday development & reasoning
Memory UseAdvanced with local file accessEnhanced but less than Opus
Pricing (per 1M tokens)$15 (input) / $75 (output)$3 (input) / $15 (output)
AvailabilityPro, Max, Team, EnterpriseAlso available to free users

Why Claude 4 Changes Everything

These models aren’t just better, they’re smarter, more reliable and more intuitive. Claude Opus 4 helps with advanced code refactors, full-stack development, and scientific research. Claude Sonnet 4 fits beautifully into daily workflows for app development, customer service automation, and general productivity. The models avoid “shortcuts” 65% more effectively than Sonnet 3.7. This means they complete tasks the right way instead of using hacks or incomplete logic. That reliability is crucial for high-stakes usage.

Our Opinion

Anthropic has delivered a major leap forward. Claude Opus 4 truly sets a new benchmark for coding and extended reasoning, becoming the best AI assistant for serious developers and researchers. Claude Sonnet 4 is the perfect everyday partner, smart, fast and efficient. Whether you need help writing code, understanding data, solving complex problems, or building full AI-driven applications, Claude 4 delivers. These are the most advanced, safe, and useful AI models available today. This launch proves that Anthropic is not just keeping up with the competition they’re leading it.

Ready to try it out? Claude 4 models are now available on Anthropic API, Amazon Bedrock, and Google Cloud Vertex AI. Get started with Claude Code, install the IDE extensions, or build your own AI-powered agent today. Let Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4 power your next innovation.