ChatGPT-5 Is Here-ish. What About Claude 5?

August 5, 2025

Notes on branding, writing, and AI

Following the AI model wars

Bottom line up front: Claude 5 isn't likely to arrive anytime soon.

Given that ChatGPT-5, from OpenAI, is scheduled to be dropped any day now, and that Google and xAI have recently dropped new models that are crushing benchmarks, some have begun asking about Claude 5. 

Does Anthropic, the company responsible for Claude, really need to release a new model sometime soon? It’s for sure true that all things in AI seem to be moving at the speed of light, but Claude 4 only just came out in May. Something to remember! And if anything, Claude’s attracting a more committed following, especially around Claude Code and Claude 4’s reasoning capabilities. 

I also prefer Claude’s design sensibility over ChatGPT. I’ll comment more about this in a future post.

The Claude 5 Rumor Mill

Some online forums are abuzz with Q1 2026 predictions for Claude 5, mostly based on the pattern of previous releases from Anthropic. A few users are betting on a February launch, figuring Anthropic will feel the pressure to keep pace with the competition.

Keep in mind, however, Claude 4 wasn’t just an incremental upgrade. It's a hybrid reasoning model that can switch between instant responses and extended, multi-hour thinking sessions. When developers at companies like Replit talk about Claude Opus 4 working autonomously for seven hours straight on complex projects, we're not talking about a minor improvement—we're looking at a fundamental shift.

So why rush to Claude 5 when Claude 4 is only a few months old and users are loving it? Rushing to Claude 5 could be about keeping up with its competitor’s version naming—ChatGPT has (shortly) a version 5 so Claude needs a version 5, too. While that may sound trivial, it could coax Anthropic to drop an interim model like a 4.x before Q1 2026. Another reason to release a model sooner would be if ChatGPT-5 takes another mind-blowing leap forward in capability, especially in coding or reasoning, areas where Claude currently has the advantage. 

The Real Competition: It's All About the Money

While we're speculating about model releases, the real drama is happening in the funding world—and it's wild. OpenAI just closed an $8.3 billion round at a $300 billion valuation. That's a statement that’s sent the AI arms race into the stratosphere. 

Not to be left behind, Anthropic is reportedly closing in on their own massive funding round—$5 billion that would value them at $170 billion. That's nearly a 3x jump from just a few months ago. In any other industry, that kind of valuation acceleration would trigger alarm bells. In AI right now? It's Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro is already here and crushing benchmarks, while Elon Musk's xAI just raised $10 billion and released Grok 4, which set its own performance records across multiple benchmarks.

The rumor mill says that xAI is seeking up to a $200 billion valuation in their next round. When an AI company founded just two years ago is chasing a valuation that would put it ahead of most Fortune 100 companies, you know something unprecedented is happening.

In the context of other competitive pressures: Microsoft just added AI capabilities to its Edge browser (though a friend who uses that browser wasn’t away of the changes) and continues to improve Copilot. Perplexity just launched Comet, its natively AI browser (more of these are coming). And Meta is offering top AI researchers up to $1B in compensation for four years. Are you kidding!

The Funding Reality Check

But let's be real about what all this funding means. Anthropic's $170 billion valuation, while impressive, still puts them behind OpenAI's $300 billion. And that gap isn't just about bragging rights—it's about compute resources, talent acquisition, and the ability to build the massive infrastructure these models require.

The valuations may not be as out of whack as they seem. OpenAI expects to generate $20 billion in revenue by the end of this year, up from $13 billion currently. Anthropic's revenue is reportedly on track to hit $5 billion annually, after starting the year reporting $1B. While that's incredible growth, it also highlights just how capital-intensive this race has become. 

In other words, funding pressures—both for revenue and future valuations—could push Anthropic to accelerate its planned release cycle.

Reading the AI Tea Leaves

So when might we actually see Claude 5? The speculation about Q1 2026 might not be wrong, but it's probably not driven by the factors people assume. Rather than rushing to match competitors feature-for-feature, Anthropic decide to wait until they can make a leap that fundamentally changes the conversation again.

Given Claude 4's focus on sustained reasoning and tool use, Claude 5 might be less about raw performance increases and more about integration—an AI that doesn't just think for hours, but coordinates across multiple systems, manages long-term projects, and maintains relationships and context across months rather than sessions. 

Whatever happens, we won’t have to wait long. Q1 2026 is less than six months away.