If you’re impressed after using Claude, you’ll probably want to use one of their better models. To use Claude’s best AI models, you need to upgrade to a Pro account. At that point, the question becomes: Claude 3.5 Sonnet or Claude 3 Opus?
These models stand out for their high performance, processing speed, and levels of knowledge on different topics. But what really sets them apart? And how can you get the most out of Claude’s best models?
In this guide, we’ll cover what Claude is, what sets it apart, and which of these two models offers you the best that Anthropic has to offer.
What Is Claude?
Claude is an AI chatbot and assistant built by Anthropic. Compared to other similar AI model lines, Claude has the same underlying technology but a focus on safety as well as good overall performance.
Claude was designed to generate text, including fiction, non-fiction, mathematical expressions, and code. It can carry on conversations with users or simply answer questions. More importantly for professionals and businesses, Claude can be directed to perform complex tasks or even be integrated into company apps via API.
Claude 3 Opus was one of three language models released under Claude 3. Claude 3.5 Sonnet came out later, building from the success of Claude 3 Sonnet. However, the newer version of Sonnet now offers some of the fastest speeds that Anthropic has ever offered and much higher performance on AI benchmarks.
How Claude Works
Claude leverages a large language model (LLM) and its underlying transformer architecture to recognize patterns and process language. Using this underlying technology of AI chatbots, it can provide elaborate and impressive responses.
Basically, the transformer helps Claude models understand the associations between words and sentences in large bodies of text. It can then understand the meaning and context of language.
Once Claude understands all of the data it’s fed, it applies sophisticated sets of probabilities, predicting the next words, sentences, and so forth. Every response is a prediction of what the next text should be.
This same process powers AI models built by other companies. Generating AI relies on it to create the kinds of responses first popularized by ChatGPT in late 2022.
What Makes Claude Different?
A large portion of the explanations we’ve offered here can be applied to most other LLMs. They use the same underlying transformer technology. But Claude stands apart for its unique mission statement and the quality of its more recent models.
Claude models run on Anthropic’s Constitutional AI, as described in a paper released in December of 2022 when they launched.
Constitutional AI is an extended set of user-guided behavior and provides guardrails against abuse. There are many additional parameters designed to keep the platform safe in sensitive professional situations. For example, outputs provided by Claude models use the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a reference.
The idea of Constitutional AI is to provide transparency on how Anthropic removes toxic, discriminatory, or illegal content. They apply a collection of meaningful legal and ethical documentation to steer their AI models in a safer and more useful direction.
A big part of the constitution comes from public input. Anthropic based their process on the Collective Intelligence Project, using preferences from a collection of participants who drafted their ideal constitution for an AI system. They used this process to refine their own constitution to be more in line with a general consensus on what’s useful and helpful to users and humanity.
The Constitutional AI is an ongoing process, and one that may be beneficial depending on your particular needs. There are cases when it can be enormously useful and cases when it may not. Constitutional AI may not be the best approach to generating edgy jokes or dark humor. But it can become increasingly helpful in a world that is quickly adopting AI in educational and professional spaces.
Claude 3 Opus
Upon its release in March of 2024, Claude 3 Opus was introduced as Anthropic’s “most intelligent” model. It outperformed the other two models, Claude 3 Sonnet and Claude 3 Haiku, on industry benchmarks. It also performed at a similar level to GPT-4 on the general knowledge MMLU benchmark while carrying the benefits of its cautious Constitutional AI.
Claude 3 Opus was immediately presented as a great option for tasks such as:
Live customer support
Data extraction tasks
Summarization
Auto-completion
While Claude 3 Opus wasn’t the fastest of the models, it was designed for processing power and the highest-quality responses possible. While Claude 3 Haiku was faster, all three models came with optimized speeds.
Most importantly, Claude 3 Opus brought Anthropic’s vision for AI into close competition with OpenAI and Google Gemini in:
Overall university-level Q&A
Visual understanding
Mathematical equations
Coding
In addition, Claude balanced out its Constitutional AI so that it worked more closely to how it was intended. Before, the constitution was enforced in a more heavy-handed way, and some requests were therefore refused due to a lack of understanding. This was corrected directly and with updates to the language model, which improved the overall ability of the Claude 3 models to understand context and nuance. Among the three models, Claude 3 Opus made the most mistakes, but still at a lower level than Claude 2.1.
Most importantly, Claude 3 Opus offered (and still offers) some of the best information recall and long context. The context length of Claude 3 Opus was 200K at launch.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet
Claude 3.5 Sonnet was released in June 2024, becoming Anthropic’s flagship model. Compared to Claude 3 Opus, Claude 3.5 Sonnet was a major leap forward both for Anthropic and for AI in general.
Benchmark Performance
Image credit: Anthropic
Claude 3.5 Sonnet immediately outperformed Claude 3 Opus in every category. As a model, it was far more knowledgeable and able to engage in much better reasoning. Its performance in every benchmark test proved it.
Over time, Claude 3.5 Sonnet has improved even further. As of November 2024, Claude 3.5 Sonnet is the best-performing model on the MMLU benchmark. That means its knowledge and problem-solving abilities across 57 academic subjects are measurably superior to all of the alternatives. The MMLU benchmark includes questions in STEM, humanities, mathematics, and social sciences from the elementary to the advanced professional level.
Speed
Claude 3.5 Sonnet also offers fast speeds given its informational capacity. According to Anthropic, it’s twice as fast as Claude 3 Opus. With a quick test, you can see that this is roughly true, though speed is seldom an issue for either model.
More importantly, for many users, Claude 3.5 Sonnet brought a lot more coding skills to the table. Coding and mathematic benchmark performances demonstrate part of the story.
Coding
After asking Claude 3.5 Sonnet to design a simple fitness tracking app, it produced a user onboarding interface, tracking interface, and several dozens of lines of code in less than 30 seconds. It’s neither complete nor perfect, but it’s far more than you’d expect from a simple single-sentence prompt to build an app from scratch.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet understands complexity and nuance better than most alternatives. If your prompts are lacking information, it’s not hard to redirect the chatbot in a more useful direction. With the fast speeds it offers, it stands out for its ability to solve complex problems and adjust to user needs.
Use Cases
Reading Anthropic’s documentation, Claude 3.5 Sonnet was designed for highly contextual customer support and other multi-step tasks, including endless possible workflows.
From Anthropic’s own website, you can find many use cases where the new model solved previously difficult workflow challenges. User-submitted content, which is also readily available, points to many more such cases.
What this all points to is one of the best “jack of all trades” AI chatbots available today. Claude 3.5 Sonnet is available for free, but its use is limited. However, you can get a surprising amount of use out of just a few free prompts.
Comparing Claude Models
In terms of speed, knowledge, reasoning, and problem-solving, there is no comparison between Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Claude 3 Opus. Claude 3.5 Sonnet is faster, more comprehensive, more knowledgeable, more accurate, and easier to work with.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the key differences.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs. Claude 3 Opus: Cost
Some Claude 3 models are free for any user. You can sign up for free with an email account in a quick and easy process.
With a free Claude account, you can use Claude 3 models for a limited number of prompts.
However, both Claude 3 Opus and Claude 3.5 Sonnet require a Claude Pro subscription. A pro subscription unlocks far more queries with Claude 3 Opus and Claude 3.5 Sonnet. You can use either model interchangeably, including in the same continuous thread.
Claude Pro costs $20 per month.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs. Claude 3 Opus: Originality
Both Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Claude 3 Opus offer largely original content stemming from extensive, well-controlled training on massive quantities of data. However, they both also face similar challenges.
If you use either of these Claude models, it’s unlikely that your work will constitute plagiarism. However, there’s always a real possibility if you don’t adequately fact-check Claude-produced content and find credible citations for factual assertions you make using the data provided by Claude. Remember that you’re the legal owner and are responsible for any work you prompt Claude to do for you.
Most AI models, including Claude’s, are built on training on data coming from sources that are:
Public domain
Copyright-protected
Creative Commons (CC)
Fair use
Other
So, Claude’s final outputs can be the result of complex reasoning and information from sources of varying levels of protection. There’s a small possibility that Claude produces text that constitutes copyright infringement. In these cases, you bear responsibility if you publish the copyrighted text.
Overall, there are no definitive sources on which models are more or less likely to produce copyright infringement. However, there are other risks to consider, some of which are more thoroughly studied.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs. Claude 3 Opus: AI Detection
Between Claude 3 Opus and Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Claude 3 Opus is more likely to produce content that’s easily detectable as AI-generated. But this has been changing quickly.
Typically, newer models of AI chatbots are less likely to produce work that’s flagged automatically for AI generation. However, there are two factors to consider:
Even new AI models eventually get detected by the best AI detectors, which often just need some time to adjust
Combined with trained human eyes, it’s still easy to tell if text was produced by people or AI chatbots
New AI models, including Claude 3.5 Sonnet when it was released, come with:
Updated understanding of language and fluency
More natural, flowing sentence structure
Greater contextual understanding
Reduction of repetitive patterns that make “fluffy” content
As AI models improve, so do AI detectors. While newer AI models offer greater fluency and humanity, they’re still easy to detect with AI detectors. With a human review, it’s easy to narrow down content that’s not original and written by a human.
If you’re curious whether any text you’ve produced or read was generated with AI, try out a tool like AI Detector.
Other Risks
The risks of using AI-generated work without caution apply to all chatbot models, including Claude’s. While Claude is a safer and more considerate AI chatbot when it comes to controls, misusing it can still result in negative action against you.
The legal risks of directly copying AI content without editing and verifying it include:
Copyright infringement
Defamation
Contract breaches
Code of conduct breaches
Students and employees can apply Claude to improve their work and workflows in a number of ways. But in the end, anyone who uses Claude 3 Opus or Claude 3.5 Sonnet takes responsibility for what they produce if they submit the work as their own.
How To Use Claude AI Models Safely
Anyone, including students, employees, and contractors, can use Claude to improve their productivity. To use Claude safely, there are just a few things to keep in mind.
Originality Checks
Originality is a bigger concern when generating text, but it can also be an issue when using Claude for programming.
Adding originality to Claude-generated content doesn’t need to be complicated. To do so, refrain from simply copying and pasting what Claude generates for you. Instead, use it as an organizational and idea-generation tool. You can gain inspiration, use it for summarization, or gain new examples of what to apply to your work.
However, you should refrain from assuming that significant factual statements are true. When correcting Claude-generated work to make it more original, also include your own fact-checking and citations.
Fact-Check & Get Permission
First of all, make sure you check authoritative sources for any substantial claims that Claude produces. Fact-checking serves the purpose of avoiding presenting inaccurate or defamatory information. Inaccurate claims can get you in many different kinds of trouble, depending on the task you’re performing. But legal risks like defamation can also result if you’re not careful.
When you’re fact-checking the information Claude generates, you may find the sources of some factual claims in the text. If Claude states facts or provides code that you later find are copyright protected, ask for permission to use them.
Legal Counsel
If you’re planning on using Claude for significant changes to your workflows at the enterprise level, it’s important to seek legal consultation. The new workflows that are introduced with Claude should follow standard procedures that help your organization avoid any kind of legal issues.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs. Claude 3 Opus: Last Words
Claude 3.5 Sonnet beats Claude 3 Opus in most ways. It’s a faster model that’s good for highly contextual tasks. It’s more intelligent and offers better features and coding abilities.
Claude 3 Opus and Claude 3.5 Sonnet are both highly accurate and versatile models. They both offer cost-efficiency and the underlying benefits of Anthropic’s AI mission. You can also access both of them for extensive use with the same Claude Pro subscription. So why not try all their models out? It’s a good way to spend your time while you wait for the new (3.5) generation of Opus.
