SAN FRANCISCO - OpenAI rival Anthropic on Monday released what it said is its smartest artificial intelligence model to date, particularly when it comes to computer coding.
Along with Claude 3.7 Sonnet, the San Francisco-based company is making available in a limited research preview a digital "agent" called Claude Code tailored to be a tool for software developers.
Amazon-backed Anthropic described Claude Code as able to search and read code, edit files, run tests and more.
The release comes as AI companies are pushing out new products at a fast pace and with innovations quickly reproduced by rivals, often at a lower cost, raising concerns about finding a return on the massive investments.
Anthropic's new model is "much stronger at coding, and particularly at taking over and doing really complicated coding tests," Anthropic co-founder and chief science officer Jared Kaplan told AFP.
Aside from overall improved intelligence, the latest iteration of Claude has a "hybrid" reasoning model that lets users get quick answers to questions or have it spend time mulling complex queries and share steps in the process, according to Kaplan.
The improvement enables Claude to better follow instructions and handle more sophisticated analyses, he added.
Since OpenAI released ChatGPT in late 2022, the race has been on to lead in a technology predicted to change the way people live and work.
The new AI model makes its debut as Anthropic works on finalising a $3.5-billion funding round that values the startup at $61.5-billion in a huge leap from its prior valuation, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Anthropic declined to comment on the report.