Claude is Anthropic’s family of AI assistant models, organized into three tiers: Opus (most capable), Sonnet (balanced), and Haiku (fastest and most economical). The family launched in 2023 and is offered through the Anthropic API, the Claude apps, and major cloud platforms.
As of June 2026, Anthropic’s Claude page names current models across the tiers, including Claude Opus 4.8 and 4.7, Claude Sonnet 4.6, and Claude Haiku 4.5. Anthropic’s announcement for Claude Opus 4.8, dated May 28, 2026, describes it as an upgrade over Opus 4.7 with priced API access (listed at $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens) and improvements to code reliability. Version numbers advance frequently, so these reflect the lineup shown on the verification date.
Distribution is primarily commercial API and subscription apps rather than open weights.
Why business readers should care: Claude is a leading enterprise AI assistant, and the Opus/Sonnet/Haiku tiering is a clear template for the common tradeoff every buyer faces between capability, speed, and cost.