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.

Here are some benchmarks between 4.7 and 4.8 models shared by Anthropic:

• Agentic coding score increases from 64.3% to 69.2%
• Multidisciplinary reasoning with tools jumps from 54.7% to 57.9%
• Agentic computer use moves from 82.8% to 83.4%
• Knowledge work score increases from 1753 to 1890
• Agentic financial analysis improves from 51.5% to 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, the company says.

Claude Code extra and max performance efforts

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

The company is increasing Claude Code rate limits to fit 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; we recommend using “extra” for difficult tasks and long-running asynchronous workflows. We have increased rate limits in Claude Code to accommodate the higher token usage of higher effort levels; users can select whichever makes sense for their particular project.

Claude adding dynamic workflows feature for handling very large-scale problems

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

• Dynamic workflows. This new feature, available in research preview, allows Claude to take on even bigger tasks in Claude Code. 
• Effort control in claude.ai and Cowork. A new control alongside the model selector lets users choose how much effort Claude puts into a response. 
• The 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.

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

You can learn more much 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.

Recent Anthropic stories:

• Anthropic releases 9 Claude connectors for creative tools, including Blender and Adobe
• Anthropic adds routines to redesigned Claude Code, here’s how it works
• Anthropic updates Claude Managed Agents with three new features

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