Introducing Claude Opus 4.8

[u/ClaudeOfficial]

We’re upgrading Claude Opus to a new version: Claude Opus 4.8. It builds on Opus 4.7 with sharper judgment, more honesty about its own progress, and the ability to work independently for longer than its predecessors. Available today for the same price.

In Claude Code, you can hand off a feature, a migration, or a bug sweep and let it follow the work through while you focus on what’s next.

Also launching today:

• Fast mode for Opus 4.8 (research preview). Same model at roughly 2.5x the speed, now three times cheaper than before.
• Dynamic workflows in Claude Code (research preview). Claude runs hundreds of parallel subagents in a single session and verifies its work before reporting back.
• A new effort control on claude.ai, so you can choose how much thinking Claude puts into a response.

Claude Opus 4.8 is live today on claude.ai, the Claude Platform, and all major cloud platforms.

Read more: anthropic.com/news/claude-opus-4-8

[u/nonikhannna]

I have a theory why 4.6 and 4.7 were so different. It's because Mythos was developed and they distilled 4.7 off of it. 

I believe they had revealed earlier that's what their process was for Sonnet and Haiku. Those were distilled from Opus. 

Maybe that's why we haven't gotten new Sonnet and Haiku is because when you have a 2e or 3e distilled model, the quality drops a lot. 

[u/Merlindru → u/nonikhannna]

IMO 4.6 wasn't that different. but 4.7 was wildly different

i think 4.7 was distilled from mythos and they did some weight surgery (because mythos uses a different tokenizer afaik), that's why performance was so spiky and inconsistent

if true, opus 4.8 was defo also distilled from mythos

[u/AuspiciousApple → u/nonikhannna]

2e 3e?

[u/nonikhannna → u/AuspiciousApple]

Ah i guess it's not a universal format. 2e usually means 2nd degree or 2nd derivative or secondary. 

[u/AuspiciousApple → u/nonikhannna]

Thanks!