Claude 4 Model Family Announced
Narrative
Next generation model family. Improved reasoning, agentic capabilities, and extended context. Claude 4 Opus coming Q1, Sonnet and Haiku following.
Reality
Announcement strategic response to DeepSeek R1. Opus delayed to February for additional safety testing. Sonnet 4 benchmarks strong but not transformative over 3.5. Context window 200K confirmed.
Implication
Maintained Anthropic competitive position. But DeepSeek timing diminished impact. Market shifted from "who has reasoning" to "who optimizes cost/performance."