Anthropic unveils more powerful AI model ahead of rival GPT-5 release
Anthropic is releasing a new version of its most powerful artificial intelligence model as rival OpenAI nears the long-awaited launch of its GPT-5 system.
Anthropic is set to announce Tuesday the release of Opus 4.1, an update to its high-end AI model that the company claims is more capable at coding, research and data analysis. The new offering is also better at fielding complex multi-step problems, the company said, positioning it as a more effective AI agent.
The update is part of a shift toward doing more incremental improvements to its coding models, in addition to larger model releases.
"In the past, we were too focused on only shipping the really big upgrades,' said Anthropic Chief Product Officer Mike Krieger.
"It's better at coding, better at reasoning, better at agentic tasks. We're just making it better for people.'
Founded in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI employees, Anthropic has tried to distinguish itself from rivals with advanced models and a greater emphasis on responsible AI development. Anthropic's Claude software has also excelled in coding, a key revenue growth area for the company.
The San Francisco-based company is generating about US$5bil (RM21bil) in annualised revenue, Bloomberg News has reported. Anthropic is also in the midst of finalising a deal to raise as much as US$5bil (RM21bil) in a new funding round at a valuation of US$170bil (RM718bil) valuation, Bloomberg previously reported.
But Anthropic faces significant competition. Alphabet Inc.'s Google and OpenAI have introduced features designed to help programmers streamline the process of writing and debugging code. OpenAI executives have also been publicly teasing GPT-5, with reports suggesting it could come as soon as this month.
"One thing I've learned, especially in AI as it's moving quickly, is that we can focus on what we have – and what other folks are going to do is ultimately up to them,' Krieger said when asked about OpenAI's upcoming release.
"We'll see what ends up happening on the OpenAI side, but for us, we really just focused on what can we deliver for the customers we have.'
Anthropic's new model, released two months after Opus 4, is billed as more adept at coding. It can better navigate large codebases and be more precise in making modifications to code, the company said. The upgraded model also scores two percentage points higher than its predecessor on the popular coding evaluation benchmark, SWE-Bench Verified, Anthropic said.
Customers such as coding app Windsurf, which was recently acquired by Cognition, and Rakuten Group Inc., have been seeing faster and improved coding task completion with the model, according to customer statements Anthropic shared. – Bloomberg
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