Rumors are swirling that Anthropic is close to releasing Claude Sonnet 5, a new version of its mid-tier AI model that could significantly shift the competitive landscape for large language models.

Multiple reports published in early February suggest Claude Sonnet 5 is imminent, with some industry watchers pointing to signs of internal testing and quiet rollout preparation. While Anthropic has not formally announced a release date, speculation intensified after developers and analysts began referencing "Sonnet 5" in public forums and social posts.

According to UCStrategies, Claude Sonnet 5 is expected to deliver major performance gains while maintaining the pricing structure that has made Sonnet attractive to developers. The outlet reports that the model may match or exceed the capabilities of Anthropic’s higher-end Opus 4.5 model while remaining significantly cheaper to run, a combination that could make it especially appealing for enterprise and coding workloads.

Cost efficiency appears to be a central theme. Coverage from Geeky Gadgets suggests Sonnet 5 could cost roughly half as much as Opus 4.5, while offering faster inference and stronger agent-style capabilities, including improved context retention and multitasking. That positions the model as a direct challenger not just to Anthropic’s own lineup, but also to OpenAI's and Google’s upcoming releases.

There are also rumors that Claude Sonnet 5 will deepen its integration with Claude Code, Anthropic’s developer-focused environment. Several analysts cited by UCStrategies speculate that the model could outperform Opus in coding tasks, particularly in long-running workflows that benefit from sustained context and structured reasoning.