[DigitalToday reporter Yoonseo Lee] Anthropic has launched its low-cost artificial intelligence (AI) model, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Haiku 5.5).

IT outlet 9to5Mac reported on Oct. 7 (local time) that the model replaces the existing Haiku 4.5, marking the first Haiku-series upgrade in about a year.

The launch extends an expansion of the Claude 5.5 lineup over the past month. Anthropic previously upgraded Opus and Sonnet to version 5.5 and has now switched Haiku to 5.5 as well. This aligns the company’s main model lineup under the same generation system.

The Claude lineup is divided by use case and price. Haiku is the smallest and cheapest model, Sonnet is mid-tier and Opus is a higher-end model with higher price and performance. Fable and Mythos are presented as top-tier models with higher performance and cost than Opus.

The core of Haiku 5.5 unveiled this time is cost and speed. Anthropic explained that it designed Haiku 5.5 for high-volume processing and cost-sensitive tasks. It said the model can reliably handle fast, repetitive work such as summarisation, compression, database queries and classification requests.

In coding work, its combination with higher-end models also stands out. Anthropic said Haiku 5.5 is suitable as a lower-level agent that supports Opus 5.5 and Sonnet 5.5. It added that it is the fastest model in its lineup and is particularly suited to tasks where response speed is critical, such as real-time customer support or browser use.

Anthropic also highlighted price competitiveness. It said Haiku 5.5 has operating costs about 75 percent lower than the previous version. The move is seen as aimed at broadening use by emphasising cost efficiency in the low-cost AI model market.

The company also revised its model pricing structure. Anthropic said it is improving value for money across its model lineup with the launch and cut Sonnet 5.5’s cache-read price by half. Sonnet 5.5 will therefore cost about 20 percent less to run for most agent-type tasks.

Monthly API credits are also set to be newly provided to Claude Max and Team subscribers. The credits are seen as intended to support users who build new agents and applications on the Claude platform.

Anthropic is introducing Haiku 5.5 on its website by comparing it with OpenAI’s low-cost model GPT-5.5 Luna. With demand for low-cost models rising, price competition targeting corporate customers is likely to intensify further.

This update amounts to a rebalancing of prices and roles across the Claude product line. It remains to be seen whether Haiku 5.5 will establish itself as the default model for high-speed, repetitive work and how price differentiation with Sonnet 5.5 will affect wider adoption.

Introducing Claude Haiku 5.5: the cheapest, fastest, and most capable small model we’ve ever released. On average, it costs around 75% less to run than Claude Haiku 4.5. https://t.co/jm06cZJfkV