Anthropic Launches Claude Haiku 4.5, a Faster and Cheaper Small AI Model

Amazon-backed AI firm Anthropic has unveiled Claude Haiku 4.5, a compact artificial intelligence model that outperforms its predecessors in speed and cost-efficiency. The new model rivals larger, previously top-tier models, even matching the performance of Anthropic's midsized Claude Sonnet 4 and OpenAI's GPT-5 in coding benchmarks. "It punches way above its weight," said Anthropic's Chief Product Officer Mike Krieger.

Haiku 4.5 is priced at one-third the cost of Sonnet models for paying customers, with Sonnet itself priced at one-fifth of Anthropic's largest model, Opus. Free users retain access to Sonnet 4.5, but Haiku offers greater capacity due to its smaller size and faster processing. Krieger noted a preference for Haiku on mobile devices, citing its rapid response times despite Sonnet's superior intelligence.

Anthropic designed Haiku and Sonnet to function synergistically. Sonnet 4.5 decomposes complex tasks into multi-step plans, while Haiku 4.5 executes the smaller components, making the duo particularly valuable for business applications.