Anthropic launched its new AI model, Claude Haiku 5.5, on October 7, 2026.
According to Anthropic, it is their most affordable, fastest, and most capable small model yet.
What’s New?
Claude Haiku 5.5 is specially designed for tasks where:
Speed is important
A large number of requests need to be processed
Costs need to be kept low
Repetitive tasks need to be automated
Real-time responses are required
Where Can Haiku 5.5 Be Used?
Anthropic has highlighted several key use cases:
1. Summarisation
It can quickly summarise large volumes of documents or information.
2. Classification
It can classify large amounts of text or requests into different categories.
3. Customer Support
Haiku 5.5 can be used for real-time applications such as live chat and customer support.
4. Browser and Computer Use
It can handle repetitive tasks such as form filling, data entry, and transferring information between different applications.
5. Subagents
Haiku 5.5 can be used as a smaller subagent alongside a larger AI model.
For example:
A larger model can plan the complete task and assign smaller, specific tasks to Haiku 5.5.
6. Coding
Haiku 5.5 can also be used for small and well-defined coding tasks, direct edits, and specific changes.
The Biggest Highlight: Cost
Haiku 5.5 is significantly cheaper than Haiku 4.5.
For prompts up to 100K tokens:
Input: $0.10 / 1 million tokens
Output: $0.50 / 1 million tokens
For prompts larger than 100K tokens:
Input: $0.50 / 1 million tokens
Output: $2.50 / 1 million tokens
According to Anthropic, Haiku 5.5 costs around 75% less on average compared to Haiku 4.5. For requests up to 100K tokens, the price can be up to 90% lower.
Another Important Feature: Effort Control
Haiku 5.5 is the first Haiku-class model to offer an adjustable effort setting.
This allows users to choose between:
Prioritising lower cost
Using more effort for better intelligence and performance
This means users do not need to use the same level of AI effort for every task.
Major Improvements in Performance
According to Anthropic’s benchmarks, Haiku 5.5 shows major improvements over Haiku 4.5 in coding, computer use, reasoning, and agentic tasks.
In the OSWorld 2.1 computer-use benchmark:
Haiku 5.5: 72.4%
compared to
Haiku 4.5: 15.7%
This shows a significant improvement in computer-use capabilities.
Where Is It Available?
Claude Haiku 5.5 is now available on:
Web
iOS
Android
Claude Code
Claude API
Amazon Web Services
Google Cloud
Microsoft Foundry
Developers can get started through the API using claude-haiku-5-5.
In Short
Claude Haiku 5.5 =
More Speed + Lower Cost + Better Capability + High-Volume AI Tasks
For larger and more complex tasks, Anthropic’s Opus and Sonnet models may still be more suitable.
But for tasks where speed, scale, and cost matter the most, Haiku 5.5 could be an important new option.