Anthropic Launches Claude Sonnet 5.5 With 30% Faster Responses
The mid-tier model uses tokens at a significantly slower rate than Sonnet 5 and performs strongly on agentic coding benchmarks.
Anthropic launched Claude Sonnet 5.5 on Sept. 28, introducing a faster mid-tier model for everyday tasks as artificial intelligence companies compete on performance and operating costs.
Sonnet 5.5 is designed for coding and creating office documents. Anthropic says the model responds 30% faster than Sonnet 5, which was introduced about three months ago, and uses tokens at a significantly slower rate.
Anthropic’s benchmarks show Sonnet 5.5 outperforming Claude Opus 5.5 on agentic coding tasks. The advantage may be linked to Sonnet 5.5’s ability to spawn multiple agents without exceeding cost limits.
Sonnet is less powerful than Anthropic’s Opus models but may be more useful in some situations because of its agility. Anthropic also says Sonnet 5.5 has cyber capabilities comparable to Opus 5, making it the first Sonnet model subject to the same cyber safeguards used for Fable and Opus.
Anthropic had previously announced plans to release Sonnet 5.5 and Haiku 5.5 in the coming weeks. A new version of Haiku, Anthropic’s smallest model, remains planned for release in the coming weeks, although no firm date was given.
