Anthropic's Claude 4: AI Agents & Coding

Anthropic Introduces Claude 4: A Leap in AI Agents and Coding

Anthropic has unveiled its Claude 4 model family, marking a significant advancement in AI capabilities for coding, research, and everyday applications. The lineup includes Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4, each designed to excel in specific areas while pushing the boundaries of AI performance.

Claude Opus 4: The Powerhouse for Coding and Research

Claude Opus 4 is Anthropic’s most powerful model to date, particularly excelling in coding tasks. It has achieved impressive scores on benchmarks, with 72.5% on SWE-bench and 43.2% on Terminal-bench. This model is engineered for sustained performance, capable of working continuously for hours on tasks that demand focused effort. Anthropic positions Opus 4 as a breakthrough for AI agents, enabling them to tackle complex, long-duration projects with unprecedented efficiency.

Claude Sonnet 4: Versatility for Everyday Use

Claude Sonnet 4 is designed as a versatile model suitable for a wide range of applications. It builds on the capabilities of its predecessor, Sonnet 3.7, with enhancements that make it ideal for everyday tasks. GitHub has announced plans to integrate Sonnet 4 as the base model for its new coding agent in GitHub Copilot. Industry experts, such as Tech commentator Manus, have praised Sonnet 4 for its ability to follow complex instructions, provide clear reasoning, and deliver aesthetically pleasing outputs.

Key Features and Performance

Both Opus 4 and Sonnet 4 offer two modes of operation: one for quick replies and another for deeper reasoning. The deeper thinking mode is available in Anthropic’s Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans, while Sonnet 4’s extended thinking capabilities are also accessible to free users. Anthropic highlights that its Claude 4 models lead the industry on the SWE-bench Verified, showcasing strong performance in coding, reasoning, multimodal tasks, and agentic behavior.

Pricing and Availability

Claude Opus 4 is priced at $15 per million input tokens and $75 per million output tokens, while Claude Sonnet 4 costs $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens. Both models are available through the Anthropic API, as well as on Amazon Bedrock and Google Cloud’s Vertex AI. This broad availability ensures that developers and enterprises can easily integrate these advanced AI models into their workflows.

Industry Impact and Future Prospects

Anthropic’s Claude 4 models are poised to transform the AI landscape, particularly in coding and autonomous agent behavior. Sourcegraph and Augment Code have already noted significant improvements in software development tasks, with higher success rates and more careful work on complex projects. As Anthropic continues to roll out new tools for developers, the Claude 4 family is expected to set new standards for AI performance and usability.