The Evolution of Claude

From the first release to the anticipated Claude 5

March 2023
Released
Claude 1

Anthropic's first public model, introducing constitutional AI principles and setting a new standard for helpful, harmless, and honest AI.

100K context
Constitutional AI
Safety-first design
July 2023
Released
Claude 2

Major upgrade with improved reasoning, longer context windows, and enhanced coding capabilities. Gained significant traction among developers.

100K context
Better reasoning
Improved coding
March 2024
Released
Claude 3 Family

Revolutionary three-model approach (Haiku, Sonnet, Opus) offering different price-performance trade-offs. Set new benchmarks across the board.

200K context
Vision capabilities
3-model family
June 2024
Released
Claude 3.5 Sonnet

Surprise release delivering Opus-level performance at Sonnet pricing. Widely regarded as the best coding model available.

200K context
Superior coding
Cost-effective
March 2025
Released
Claude 4 (Sonnet)

Continued evolution with enhanced reasoning capabilities and improved performance across benchmarks. Maintained Anthropic's focus on safety and reliability.

200K context
Enhanced reasoning
42% OSWorld score
September 2025
Released
Claude Sonnet 4.5

Game-changing release achieving 77.2% on SWE-bench Verified—the highest score ever. Crowned 'the world's best coding model' with 30+ hour focus windows.

77.2% SWE-bench
30+ hour focus
0% error rate (Replit)
Q2-Q3 2026 (Estimated)
Coming Soon
Claude 5

The next frontier. Expected to feature near-AGI reasoning, 500K-1M token context windows, and even stronger agentic capabilities based on historical patterns.

500K-1M context?
90%+ SWE-bench?
Native video understanding?

Timeline based on public announcements and community speculation. Claude 5 release date is estimated.