Anthropic releases Sonnet 5.5, which it calls a significantly cheaper, faster work partner

As the AI model wars continue, Anthropic has released the newest version of Sonnet, the company’s mid-tier model, which it says will work much faster (and for significantly less) than its predecessor. The lab describes Sonnet 5.5 as an ideal assistant for everyday tasks — including coding and creating office documents. 5.5’s predecessor, Sonnet 5, was announced about three months ago.

At the time, the model’s selling point was efficient agentic deployment — the ability to run agents at a lower cost than competitors. The big selling point with 5.5, meanwhile, is speed. Anthropic claims that Sonnet 5.5 is 30 percent faster than its predecessor, and that its rate of token burn is significantly slower. In the Anthropic hierarchy…