Anthropic’s Claude Haiku 4.5 isn’t flashy – but it might be your next favorite model for getting things done fast (www.techradar.com)

Anthropic has released Claude Haiku 4.5, a compact, low-latency model that the company says delivers nearly the capabilities of its much larger Sonnet family while running at roughly twice the speed and at lower cost. Haiku 4.5 is now the default for Claude’s free tier and outperforms previous small models across many tasks, making it a practical choice for conversation, in-app assistants, browser plugins, and other latency-sensitive uses. Anthropic emphasizes that this is a strategic push toward lightweight models that trade little capability for big wins in responsiveness and cost. Technically, Haiku 4.5 is designed to operate as a sub-agent in multi-model workflows: larger models like Sonnet handle planning and coordination while fleets of Haiku agents execute targeted, parallel tasks. It integrates across Anthropic’s ecosystem (Claude Pro, Chrome extensions, third-party embeds) and includes improved safety and tone tuning—most notably a much lower sycophancy score, so it’s less likely to flatter users unnaturally. For developers and product teams, Haiku 4.5 means snappier, cheaper, and more interactive experiences and a practical path to multi-agent orchestration without the latency and expense of always using flagship models.