Anthropic launches Claude Opus 4.6 with Fast Mode delivering 2.5x faster responses

Anthropic launched Claude Opus 4.6 on February 5, 2026, featuring enhanced coding skills and a 1 million token context window for complex tasks anthropic.com+1.
Opus 4.6 achieved top performance scores, outperforming competitors like GPT-5.2 in economic tasks, with adaptive reasoning and fewer errors anthropic.com+1.
The model's standard pricing remains at $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens, with savings options available anthropic.com+1.
Fast Mode, introduced days after, delivers responses up to 2.5 times faster while maintaining quality, targeting quick-interaction workflows ainewshome.com+2.
Fast Mode's premium pricing is six times higher than standard, starting at $30 per million input tokens and $150 per million output tokens, with a 50% discount until February 16, 2026 ainewshome.com+1.
Activation of Fast Mode requires the /fast command and "extra usage" enabled, but it is not recommended for cost-sensitive, long tasks code.claude.com+1.
Anthropic's focus on speed with Fast Mode may influence market competition, prompting other AI providers to explore tiered performance-based pricing strategies the-decoder.com+1.

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