Anthropic announced its latest artificial intelligence model, Claude Opus 5, on Friday, positioning it as the company's best-performing and most cost-effective offering across industry benchmarks. The model is priced at $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens—half the cost of the previous Claude Fable 5 model—while outperforming Fable 5 on coding and knowledge work evaluations. The release addresses enterprise demand for cost-efficient AI solutions as businesses scrutinize return on investment. Anthropic faces competitive pressure from rivals including Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Chinese startups offering cheaper alternatives. The launch follows regulatory scrutiny in June when Anthropic briefly disabled access to previous models to comply with export controls citing national security authorities.
Anthropic Prices Opus 5 at Half the Cost of Fable 5
Anthropic stated Opus 5 outperforms Claude Fable 5 on coding and knowledge work evaluations and is "designed to be used every day," according to a blog post. The company said Opus 5 is not the state-of-the-art for "risky, dual-use capabilities," like cybersecurity. The model costs users $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens—half the price of Fable 5.
Enterprises Demand Cost-Efficient AI Models
"Enterprises, in our feedback and with our customer base, are looking for value," Dianne Penn, Anthropic's head of product management for research, told CNBC in an interview. "If it's a cheaper model or a cheaper offering, but it's not accomplishing a similar level of quality, it's actually not useful." The model launch comes as Anthropic and OpenAI have been working to appease a more cost-conscious customer base, where enterprises are less inclined to experiment with pricey models without a clear picture of return on investment.
Anthropic Collaborated with Government on Opus 5 Testing
Anthropic has been the subject of scrutiny since it released Claude Mythos Preview in April, which it rolled out to a select group of users. The company said the model was extremely capable in cybersecurity and excelled at discovering and exploiting vulnerabilities within software. In June, Anthropic released Mythos 5 and Fable 5, with the latter described as safe for general use and exceeding capabilities of all previous publicly released models.
Anthropic had to briefly disable access to Mythos 5 and Fable 5 days after they were released in order to comply with an export control directive from the government that cited "national security authorities." The export controls were lifted after roughly two weeks of negotiations, and Anthropic restored access to both models. Penn said Anthropic is continuing to collaborate with government agencies as part of its pre-deployment and testing, including with Opus 5. The company said Opus 5 remains behind Mythos 5 in offensive cybersecurity and biology research.
FAQ
What did Anthropic announce on Friday?
Anthropic announced Claude Opus 5, its latest AI model, which the company said is its best-performing and most cost-effective offering across industry benchmarks. The model is priced at $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens.
How does Opus 5 compare to previous Anthropic models?
Opus 5 outperforms Claude Fable 5 on coding and knowledge work evaluations and costs half the price of Fable 5. However, Anthropic said Opus 5 is not the state-of-the-art for cybersecurity capabilities and remains behind Mythos 5 in offensive cybersecurity and biology research.
What regulatory compliance steps did Anthropic take for Opus 5?
Anthropic said it is continuing to collaborate with government agencies as part of pre-deployment and testing for Opus 5. In June, the company briefly disabled access to Mythos 5 and Fable 5 to comply with export controls citing national security authorities before access was restored after roughly two weeks.
