Claude Opus 5.5 AI Just Changed Everything

Julian Goldie (0:00)

Well, the Opus 5.5 just dropped, and it makes you Claude way more powerful. This is the smartest everyday model Anthropic has ever shipped, and here's the best part, you get way more usage out of the plans you already have. That means more work done, more projects finished, and way fewer moments where Claude just stops on you. In this video, I will show you exactly what makes 5.5 so powerful, how to turn it on in one click, and the one thing you absolutely have to do after switching, or you'll miss out on its biggest superpower. I'll show you that near the end, so stick with me. By the time this video is over, your Claude will feel like a brand new, super smart AI employee that works longer, thinks harder, and gets straight to the point. Let's get into it. Claude Opus 5.5 just dropped. This is the first model in the Claude 5.5 family, so there should be more coming. And this actually performs at the level of Claude Fable 5.1 for most tasks, but it costs about 40% less to run than Opus 5, which means even if you're on the subscription, you should get more usage out of it. But we'll come on to that in a second. This is the first model since they mentioned pacing for the Frontier. So as with previous models, they've tested it with external valuations. Basically, they were calling for like a slowdown when it comes to AI releases, and that's why I think they've talked about the pacing for the Frontier. If you're wondering how it performs versus Opus 5, whether to switch or what the differences are, we'll see the biggest differences here. So for agentic coding, it's scoring 66% versus Opus 5 at 52%. It's a huge step up right there. And you can see the benchmarks versus Fable 5.1. So it's beating Fable 5.1 and Opus 5 or agentic coding on terminal bench. On Frontier code, agentic coding, 5.5 is beating both Fable 5.1 and Opus 5 Agentic coding 57, which is beating Fable 5.1 and Opus 5 And it's pretty much crushing on all the benchmarks, like you can see. So a big difference in the power of this as well. This also comes at a good time, because we now have Hermes agent that is compatible with your subscription on Claude. Previously yesterday, you couldn't use this inside API, but now you can use Hermes agent with Claude on your subscription, which is pretty cool. They just dropped a new plugin and you can see the difference in prices right here. So for input tokens, $4 versus $5. So Opus 5 was a lot more expensive than Opus 5.5. Output tokens, 20 versus 25

Cash reads, 0.2 and cash writes, $5, right? So it's just overall a lot cheaper, 40% less. And if you're wondering how it performs versus GPT-6 Asteron benchmarks, you can see that right here. We're actually running tests on Goldie Bench. So once we've done that, we'll test it out in a second.

And I've got to say like Opus 5 itself, not the best model release. So hopefully Opus 5.5 is a lot better as well. And I think they heard that because, for example, Claude mentioned here Opus 5.5 communicates more naturally, addressing some of the most common feedback they've heard on Opus 5, as you can see right here. So it's just a lot less verbose, and it should get straight to the point, a lot better.

And they've released like a big report on how it works, all the differences, etc. If you're wondering what the differences are and how they compare side by side. So number one, it's a lot smarter than the previous version. Number two, it's cheaper and faster. It's also much better at research. It should explain things more clearly. It's designed to be safer on behavioral tests, more honest about limits, and you can use it right now pretty much everywhere. So if you go to Claude, if you don't already have it, but you're on a pro plan, you can just go to Claude in your settings over here and then check for updates and then just run the latest update and that should help a lot.

By the way, it's still not perfect, right? So I'll give you an example. I actually said, run, can you run the Goldie bench tests for Opus 5.5?

And I made sure we selected the model 5.5. And then he started trying to use Open Router to use Opus 5.5 instead of the subscription in the model already has, which is a bit worrying as a start. But let's see how it goes later. And so I have to correct it and say, you should be using my Opus 5.5 subscription, which you're already using right now. So it's beginning to build those out. As you can see, not a great start, but let's see how it performs later.