Anthropic upgrades Claude with new Opus 4.8 model, details here

Source: 9to5Mac

Anthropic has released its latest AI model with Claude Opus 4.8. The new version arrives less than two months after the previous model upgrade, ramping up Anthropic’s upgrade cadence.

Opus 4.8 is a ‘more effective collaborator,’ Anthropic says

Anthropic describes Claude Opus 4.8 as having “sharper judgement, more honesty about its progress, and the ability to work independently for longer than its predecessors.”

“Early testers report that Opus 4.8 is more likely to flag uncertainties about its work and less likely to make unsupported claims,” according to Anthropic.

The company also notes that pricing remains the same between Claude Opus 4.7 and Opus 4.8.

Benchmarks (4.7 → 4.8)

• Agentic coding score: 64.3 % → 69.2 %
• Multidisciplinary reasoning with tools: 54.7 % → 57.9 %
• Agentic computer use: 82.8 % → 83.4 %
• Knowledge work score: 1 753 → 1 890
• Agentic financial analysis: 51.5 % → 53.9 %

Anthropic says Opus 4.8 fast mode is roughly 2.5 times quicker now. The upgraded fast mode also costs three times less than before.

Claude Code extra and max performance efforts

Claude Opus 4.8 will use high effort by default, which Anthropic says spends a similar number of tokens to Opus 4.7 on coding tasks but delivers better performance.

The company is increasing Claude Code rate limits to fit the “extra” and “max” performance settings as well.

• Users can choose extra (xhigh in Claude Code) or max, and the model will spend more tokens to get better results.
• “Extra” is recommended for difficult tasks and long‑running asynchronous workflows.
• Rate limits have been raised to accommodate the higher token usage of these effort levels.

Dynamic workflows and other updates

In addition to Opus 4.8’s release, Anthropic is launching three more updates:

• Dynamic workflows – a research‑preview feature that lets Claude tackle even larger tasks in Claude Code.
• Effort control in claude.ai and Cowork – a new control alongside the model selector that lets users choose how much effort Claude puts into a response.
• Messages API now accepts system entries inside the messages array – developers can update Claude’s instructions mid‑task without breaking the prompt cache or routing the update through a user turn.

Anthropic also promises to release a Mythos‑class model for all customers “in the coming weeks.” The Mythos cybersecurity model was unveiled in early April, but official access has been limited to select stakeholders behind key software platforms.

You can learn more about these features and the new Claude Opus 4.8 upgrade from Anthropic’s announcement.

Anthropic’s previous Opus model upgrade arrived on April 16 with the release of version 4.7. Today’s release comes just six weeks later. The new model is available globally from today.