Claude Opus 4.5 Is Here: Google Pushes Anthropic to the Wall
Google vs Anthropic — The Battle for AI Supremacy
Last week, Google delivered a crushing blow to its rivals with Gemini 3 Pro, achieving indisputable state-of-the-art (SOTA) results in programming, mathematics, and reasoning.
With competition stiff and the field cornered, the question became: Who will flip the table first?
Today, Anthropic answered with the release of Claude Opus 4.5.
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Breaking Records: Opus 4.5's Performance
Opus 4.5 pushes programming capabilities to explosive levels:
- SWE-bench Verified: 80.9% — first model ever to break the 80% barrier, surpassing Gemini 3 Pro's 76.2%.
- Price Drop: From $15/$75 to $5/$25 per million tokens — a 66% reduction.
This signals one of two possibilities: Anthropic is either desperate or finally serious.
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Benchmark Breakdown
SWE-bench Verified — Programming Power
Industry-standard measure for programming ability: Opus 4.5 is first-ever over 80%.
Comparison:
- Gemini 3 Pro: 76.2%
- Claude Sonnet 4.5: 77.2%
- GPT-5.1: 76.3% / 77.9%
Reportedly, Opus 4.5 scored above every human candidate in a live engineering interview simulation.
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Terminal-bench 2.0 — Real-world Coding
- Opus 4.5: 59.3%
- Gemini 3 Pro: 54.2%
- Sonnet 4.5: 50.0%
This reveals Opus 4.5’s clear edge in development environments.
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GPQA Diamond — Reasoning
- Opus 4.5: 87.0%
- Gemini 3 Pro: 91.9%
While Opus trails slightly, its reasoning remains strong.
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Summary:
> World-leading programming performance, competitively strong reasoning.
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Pricing Strategy Shift
New Pricing
- Input: $5 / million tokens
- Output: $25 / million tokens
Anthropic’s statement: "Making Opus-level capabilities accessible to more users, teams, and enterprises."
The strategy: shift from high-end niche targeting to mid-tier developers who require more power than Sonnet but couldn't justify Opus' previous costs.
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The Weeklong Showdown
- Nov 18 → Google launches Gemini 3 Pro
- Nov 24 → Anthropic launches Claude Opus 4.5
Gemini 3 Pro impressed with its record-breaking 91.9% GPQA Diamond score, sparking community praise. Anthropic countered by picking programming as the battlefield, avoiding a reasoning duel.
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Comparative Analysis — Programming vs Reasoning
When it comes to reasoning, Gemini 3 Pro wins (91.9% vs 87.0%).
When it comes to programming, Opus 4.5 dominates (80.9% vs 76.2%).
For developers, programming ability is paramount — reasoning matters less if the model can’t code effectively.
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Anthropic's Programming Edge
From testing Claude Code, I’ve realized Anthropic’s advantage is structural:
- Greater token usage tolerance (for bigger code context)
- Advanced agentic search instead of traditional RAG
- Initial design optimized for programming and AI agents
Key Optimizations:
- Expanded “think → execute → rethink” loops
- Persistent memory files for long tasks
- Long system prompt processing (>10k tokens)
- Significant reduction in reward hacking
These upgrades amplify Opus 4.5’s already powerful capabilities.
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How Gemini 3 Competes
Gemini 3 Pro excels in multimodality — handling images, video, and vision-heavy applications better than Claude.
But for pure coding workflows? Claude Opus 4.5 remains unmatched.
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Product Ecosystem Updates
Anthropic paired Opus 4.5’s release with key product upgrades:
- Claude Code (Desktop) — multiple local/remote sessions, context summarization.
- Claude for Chrome — open to all Max users.
- Claude for Excel — available to Max, Team, and Enterprise tiers.
These reinforce the message: Claude is a productivity engine, not just a chat bot.
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Partnerships
Strategic collaborations with:
- Microsoft — Azure integration
- NVIDIA — Compute resources
This supports Anthropic’s aggressive B2B positioning.
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Developer Decision Guide
Choose Claude Opus 4.5 if your work is:
- Backend & logic-heavy coding
- Long-context programming with memory requirements
- Complex debugging processes
Choose Gemini 3 Pro if you:
- Work with images, videos, or multimodal data
- Build UI/front-end designs
- Need top-tier reasoning for research tasks
Best Strategy: Use Claude for coding, Gemini for multimodality.
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AI + Monetization Synergy
Creators can combine AI breakthroughs like Opus 4.5 and Gemini 3 Pro with publishing platforms such as AiToEarn官网 to generate, distribute, and monetize AI-powered content globally.
Supports simultaneous posting to:
Douyin, Kwai, WeChat, Bilibili, Xiaohongshu, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, YouTube, Pinterest, X/Twitter.
Open-source tools integrate publishing, analytics, and model rankings — enabling smarter monetization.
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Case Study: “Thermal - Receipt Notes” App
Recently, I used Claude Code & Gemini 3 Pro together to build Thermal - Receipt Notes — an app that captures life’s moments with a sense of ceremony.
Observations:
- Gemini 3 excelled in generating front-end effects.
- Claude Code provided a better backend/dev experience than using Cursor + Gemini or Antigravity — strong engineering capabilities and low-level proficiency matter for long-horizon programming.
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Final Thoughts
Claude Opus 4.5 is:
- A direct programming-focused strike against Gemini 3 Pro
- A major pricing realignment towards broader adoption
- Evidence of AI competition reaching fever pitch
For developers, this means more powerful models, falling costs, and improved usability.
The next move? All eyes on OpenAI.
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If Claude Code access or network issues bother you, try my GLM Code: Claude Code not working? I made you a GLM Code
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