Anthropic’s fastest model, Claude 3.5 Haiku, now generally available

Anthropic has officially launched its Claude 3.5 Haiku model to all users via the Claude chatbot on the web and mobile apps, as well as seen by advanced AI users on X.

Previously limited to developers accessing it through Anthropic’s API following its October 2024 launch, this smaller, faster model has drawn attention for its ability to outperform larger models in benchmarks. key and at the same time maintain a competitive price.

According to third-party benchmarking organization Artificial analyzesClaude 3.5 Haiku “has lower latency compared to average, taking 0.80 seconds to receive the first token (TTFT)”, but “is slower compared to average, with an output speed of 65.1 tokens per second.”

The launch, which has not been officially announced, comes on the heels of major updates from Anthropic’s AI rivals OpenAI and Google, which have also shipped new models to general availability in their chatbots as the year ends, namely o1 and o1- from OpenAI. mini models and Google’s Gemini 2.

The question for Anthropic is whether customers will be impressed enough with the Claude 3.5 Haiku’s performance to sign up for its Pro tier or continue using it instead of some of these other fast and advanced rivals.

Claude 3.5 Haiku can be accessed through the Claude Chatbot

As the fastest and most cost-effective model in Anthropic’s lineup, Claude 3.5 Haiku excels at real-time tasks such as processing large data sets, analyzing financial documents, and generating results from long-context information.

It features a 200,000-token context window (more than the 128,000-token window in OpenAI’s GPT-4 and GPT-4o), allowing it to handle long inputs with ease.

In Claude’s chatbot, Haiku provides functionality that improves its versatility. Users can analyze images and attachments, making it useful for multimedia tasks and workflows involving large sets of documents.

Haiku also integrates with Claude Artifacts, the interactive sidebar first introduced in June 2024. Artifacts provides a dedicated workspace for manipulating and refining AI-generated content in real time, including running entire applications. In my Artifacts test with Haiku this morning, I was able to code a fully playable version of Pong in under a minute:

Despite its strengths, Haiku has limitations. It does not currently support web browsing or image generation, both of which are offered by competitors such as OpenAI’s GPT-4o and GPT-4.

Additionally, my brief test this morning showed that it failed the “Strawberry Test”, a common user-designed challenge in which an AI must identify the three R’s in the word strawberry.

Access and subscription details

Claude 3.5 Haiku is free to access through the Claude chatbot, but users face a varying daily message limit depending on server demand.

For example, on the free tier this morning, when I tested it, I was able to make about 10 exchanges (20 incoming and outgoing messages total) before reaching Anthropic’s quota, which resets daily.

To unlock broader usage, users can subscribe to the Claude Pro plan, priced at $20 per month.

This subscription provides up to five times the usage of the free tier, priority access during high traffic periods, early access to new features, and access to additional models like the Claude 3 Opus.

The pricing structure mirrors OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus subscription, offering a premium experience for advanced users.

Performance and cost

API-wise, Claude 3.5 Haiku offers exceptional performance at an affordable price. Starting at $0.80 per million tokens in and $4 per million tokens out, it provides a cost-effective solution compared to larger models like the Claude 3 Opus.

Developers can further reduce costs by using Fast Caching, which offers up to 90% savings, and the Message Batches API, which reduces costs by 50%.

In benchmark tests, Haiku has outperformed many larger publicly available models. Its performance includes a score of 40.6% on SWE-bench Verified, a key coding benchmark, demonstrating its strength in tasks requiring intelligence and speed. This makes Haiku a great choice for user-facing applications and time-sensitive workflows.

Key considerations

While Claude 3.5 Haiku offers solid capabilities, potential users should consider its current limitations. The lack of web browsing and image generation may make it less attractive for certain use cases compared to the competition. Additionally, the daily message limit may be inconvenient for users who do not want to upgrade to the Claude Pro subscription.

However, with features like image and file analysis, strong coding capabilities, and integration with Artifacts, Haiku remains a powerful tool for tasks that require speed and precision.

The Artifacts feature, in particular, extends its functionality beyond text generation, enabling collaborative editing and content refinement in real time.

For users ready to explore its potential, Claude 3.5 Haiku is now available and available through the Claude chatbot on web and mobile apps on iOS and Android.