Claude 4.6 Models Released February 2026 | Generated by AI
Question: When were Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Claude Opus 4.6 released?
Answer:
Both models were released in February 2026, just under two weeks apart:
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Claude Opus 4.6 — Released on February 5, 2026. It is Anthropic’s most capable model, introducing adaptive thinking (replacing extended thinking), a 1M token context window (in beta), 128K max output tokens, a compaction API for infinite conversations, and top-tier agentic coding benchmarks (65.4% on Terminal-Bench 2.0, 80.8% on SWE-bench Verified).
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Claude Sonnet 4.6 — Released on February 17, 2026, just 12 days after Opus 4.6. It is the current default model for Free and Pro users on claude.ai, offering near-Opus-level performance at Sonnet pricing ($3/$15 per million input/output tokens). Key improvements include significantly better coding consistency, instruction following, computer use, and document comprehension.
References:
- Wikipedia – Claude (language model)
- Anthropic – Introducing Claude Sonnet 4.6
- CNBC – Anthropic releases Claude Sonnet 4.6
- Kilo Blog – Opus 4.6 is Live