Anthropic launches Claude Sonnet 5 as a cheaper way to run agents

As shipping agentic capabilities becomes table stakes among foundation model companies, Anthropic is releasing Claude Sonnet 5, a more powerful and agentic version of the lab’s midsize model. “It can make plans, use tools like browsers and terminals, and run autonomously at a level that, just a few months ago, required larger and more expensive models,” Anthropic said in a blog post. That framing mirrors what OpenAI and Google have said about their own recent releases. OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol was launched in preview last week, and it is also the firm’s most agentic model yet, allowing users to split work across subagents for longer autonomous tasks. Google’s Gemini 3.5 Flash , which launched in May, was pitched as a shift from a conversational chatbot to an agentic tool that plans, builds, and iterates on real work with minimal human input. Sonnet 5’s pitch is confirmation that agentic capability is the new baseline expectation at every price tier. Now the differentiator isn’t going to be who can do agentic work best, but how cheaply they can do it and how reliably without human oversight. Sonnet 5 promises performance close to that of Opus 4.8 , but for much lower costs. Starting Tuesday, Claude Sonnet 5 will be the default model for free and Pro plans, and is available for every subscription. …