Anthropic's next-generation AI models, Claude4Sonnet and Claude4Opus, are set to launch soon, sparking widespread discussion on social media. It is reported that these two models will debut in the coming weeks, featuring the ability to seamlessly switch between "thinking mode" (for deep reasoning of complex problems) and "tool usage mode" (invoking external APIs, databases, or applications), aiming to handle complex tasks with less user intervention. Meanwhile, Anthropic's upcoming "Keynote" stream on Thursday, May 22, along with the new Claude Code feature, has garnered significant attention, sparking industry speculation about whether it is directly related to the release of Claude4. AIbase combines the latest developments to deeply analyze the technical prospects of Claude4 and its impact on the AI ecosystem.
The Core Highlights of Claude4: Dynamic Switching Between Thinking and Tools
According to industry insiders, Claude4Sonnet and Claude4Opus will be based on Anthropic's latest multimodal architecture, further enhancing the reasoning and tool usage capabilities of Claude3.7Sonnet. AIbase understands that the new models can dynamically interact and switch seamlessly between "thinking mode" (for deeply reasoning complex problems) and "tool usage mode" (calling external APIs, databases, or applications). For example, Claude4 can autonomously call the GitHub API to generate code when handling programming tasks, or combine real-time web data to generate reports during market analysis, improving task completion efficiency by 30%.
Compared to Claude3.5Sonnet (SWE-bench Verified score of 49%), Claude4 is expected to further break through in benchmark tests such as coding, mathematics, and visual reasoning, particularly scoring over 85% on TAU-bench (tool usage benchmark) in retail and aviation tasks. AIbase analyzes that this dynamic switching capability makes Claude4 more competitive in automated workflows, code debugging, and multimodal tasks, directly challenging OpenAI's o3 and Google's Gemini2.5Pro.
"Keynote" Stream and Claude Code: Prelude to Release or Independent Update?
Anthropic's planned "Keynote" stream on May 22 has sparked heated speculation within the community about the timing of Claude4's release. AIbase learned that this event may focus on Claude Code, a command-line tool that allows developers to delegate coding tasks directly from the terminal. Claude Code enables users to generate code, debug, or create PRs through natural language instructions (such as "optimize this Python script"), combined with the computer usage function of Claude3.7Sonnet (simulating keyboard and mouse operations), showcasing powerful automation potential.
However, some industry insiders believe that the release of Claude4 may not be revealed in the Keynote stream but instead launched as an independent event later. AIbase observes that Anthropic previously committed to releasing major updates every few months, and Claude3.7Sonnet was released on February 24, 2025, just three months ago. The full release of Claude4 may be scheduled for summer or fall (July-September). The Keynote stream is more likely to showcase enhancements to Claude Code or optimizations of Claude3.7 rather than directly launching Claude4.
Technical Advantages: New Benchmarks for Multimodal and Safety
Claude4 is expected to continue Anthropic's Constitutional AI and reinforcement learning (RLHF) training methods, ensuring safety and ethics in complex tasks. AIbase analyzes that the new model will further expand the 200K token context window, possibly supporting up to 1M tokens, suitable for processing large codebases or long documents.
In terms of multimodal capabilities, Claude4 is expected to enhance visual reasoning and image generation, such as more accurately parsing charts or generating high-quality design sketches, surpassing Claude3.5Sonnet's performance in MathVista (67.7%) and MMU benchmarks. Additionally, Claude4's Thinking Mode will allow developers to customize reasoning budgets (token allocation), balancing speed and accuracy, especially suitable for enterprise-level automation and academic research.
Industry Impact: Dual Breakthroughs in AI Coding and Enterprise Applications
The release of Claude4 will further solidify Anthropic's position in the AI market. AIbase observes that its dynamic switching capability and the integration of Claude Code in command-line tools directly compete with Google's Jules (AI coding agent) and Microsoft's Copilot Chat (recently open-sourced). Community feedback shows that developers highly evaluate Claude3.7Sonnet's coding capabilities (SWE-bench score of 49%) and visual reasoning (MathVista 67.7%), expecting Claude4 to exceed 60% on SWE-bench Verified, challenging OpenAI's o3 (current score of 53%).
In enterprise applications, Claude4's tool usage capabilities and low cost ($3/million tokens input, $15/million tokens output) make it more attractive in sectors like retail, finance, and logistics. For example, Claude4 can automatically process customer support tickets or optimize supply chain analysis via APIs, reducing **50%** of human intervention. AIbase predicts that the launch of Claude4 will accelerate the popularity of AI in enterprise automation and developer tools.
Community Discussions: Expectations and Controversies Surrounding Claude4
On social media, developers' expectations for Claude4 center on improvements in coding and multimodal capabilities. Some users believe that Claude4Sonnet may be released before Opus, continuing Anthropic's strategy of first launching medium-sized models. However, there are also voices questioning the "disappearance" of Claude3.5Opus (originally planned for release in 2024 but removed), worrying about possible delays in the release schedule of Claude4. AIbase believes that Anthropic's rapid iteration strategy (major updates every few months) will ensure that Claude4 is released as planned, but the exact date needs official confirmation.
Another focus of the Keynote stream is the potential upgrade of Claude Code. The community speculates that Anthropic may demonstrate the integration of Claude Code with MCP servers (such as Bright Data), further enhancing the web interaction capabilities of AI agents. This integration will make Claude4 more competitive in automated coding and data scraping tasks.
The Future Trendsetter for AI Coding and Multimodal
As a professional media outlet in the AI field, AIbase highly anticipates Anthropic's upcoming release of Claude4Sonnet and Claude4Opus. Its dynamic switching capability and innovations in Claude Code mark the transition of AI from single-dialogue models to intelligent agents, especially showcasing great potential in coding and enterprise automation. The potential collaboration between Claude4 and domestic models like Qwen3 also provides new opportunities for Chinese developers to participate in the global AI ecosystem.
AIbase reminds developers that early versions of Claude4 may face issues with functional stability, recommending testing its performance through Anthropic API or Claude.ai and paying attention to the latest announcements at the Keynote stream (May 22).
