Claude Sonnet 5.5 just launched — here's why it's about to become your daily driver

Anthropic unveiled Claude Sonnet 5.5 on Monday, shortly after launching Opus 5.5. While the new model is smaller, it may prove to be the more valuable release for most users. Designed for everyday tasks such as rewriting emails, summarizing documents, organizing notes or creating slide decks, Sonnet 5.5 generates responses about 30% faster than its predecessor, writes with greater clarity and handles typical jobs more effectively.

In benchmark tests reflecting these common tasks, Sonnet 5.5 scored nearly identical to Opus 5.5, effectively closing the gap between the two models. Additionally, Sonnet 5.5 requires fewer tokens to complete a task, leading to a potential 30% reduction in costs for typical jobs. The model outperforms Opus 5.5 on one coding test but lags behind in others.

While Opus 5.5 remains the top model for complex problems and long-term tracking of interconnected information, Sonnet 5.5 could become the default choice for many routine Claude tasks. Sonnet 5.5 is available across Anthropic's platforms, including the Claude API, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. It replaces Sonnet 5 as the default model for Free and Pro users and runs in Medium effort mode by default, balancing speed and token usage.