Anthropic has released the latest version of Opus, its most advanced model yet, which is critical to the Claude Code tool. The previous version, Opus 4.5, was only released last November, but with the release of 4.6, the company is looking to expand the model’s capabilities.
Anthropic has released the latest version of Opus, its most advanced model yet, which is critical to the Claude Code tool. The previous version, Opus 4.5, was only released last November, but with the release of 4.6, the company is looking to expand the model’s capabilities.
Perhaps the most notable addition in the new version of Opus is the appearance of what the company calls “agent teams” — groups of agents that are able to divide large tasks into separate segmented jobs, writes TechCrunch.
“Instead of having one agent perform tasks sequentially, you can distribute the work between multiple agents — where each is responsible for their part and coordinates actions directly with the others,” the company notes.
Scott White, Anthropic's head of product, compared the new feature to working with a team of talented professionals, noting that dividing responsibilities between agents allows them to "coordinate actions in parallel and work faster."
Agent commands are currently available in preview format for API users and subscribers.
Opus 4.6 also has a longer context window, meaning the program can render more information per user session. The new model offers 1 million context tokens, which is comparable to what the company's Sonnet (versions 4 and 4.5) offers. These context windows allow for working with larger code bases and can also allow for processing larger documents, the company says.
The new version of Opus also integrates Claude directly into PowerPoint as a convenient sidebar, a significant step forward from the previous chatbot interaction with the program.
White said that previously, a user could ask Claude to create a presentation outline, but then that file had to be transferred to PowerPoint for further editing. Now, the presentation can be created directly in PowerPoint with Claude's direct assistance.
White told TechCrunch that Opus has evolved from a model that was extremely effective in one specific area — software development — to a program that can be useful to a wider audience.
“We’ve noticed that a lot of people who aren’t professional developers are using Claude Code simply because it’s an incredibly powerful tool for getting things done,” he said. White added that they’re seeing users not just programmers, but also product managers, financial analysts, and professionals from various industries.
