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GitHub Copilot: Claude Opus 5.5 Now Available

GitHub CopilotView original changelog

GitHub Copilot added Claude Opus 5.5, Anthropic's newest Opus-tier model, to its model picker across ten surfaces including VS Code, Visual Studio, Copilot CLI, the coding agent, and JetBrains IDEs. Anthropic says Opus 5.5 matches Claude Opus 5's task performance using significantly fewer steps and tokens, and TechCrunch and VentureBeat both reported it holds up against Anthropic's larger Fable 5.1 model at 40-60% lower cost. The model is rolling out gradually to Copilot Pro+, Max, Business, and Enterprise subscribers under usage-based billing, with built-in text watermarking that doesn't affect output quality or cost.

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Key Takeaways

  • CodeRabbit's benchmark review on YouTube found Claude Opus 5.5 caught 72% of known bugs in code-review tests, up from 56% for Claude Opus 5, though it used more tokens per review to get there.
  • Despite the added token spend in code review, Anthropic's own benchmarks show Opus 5.5 completing comparable tasks with significantly fewer steps and tokens overall than Opus 5.
  • The model watermarks its text output with a method Anthropic says adds no cost, no extra tokens, and doesn't affect quality or readability.
  • Opus 5.5 is rolling out across ten Copilot surfaces, from VS Code and Visual Studio to JetBrains, Xcode, and Eclipse.
  • TechCrunch and VentureBeat reported Opus 5.5 holds up against Anthropic's larger Fable 5.1 model on several agentic benchmarks, at a fraction of the cost.
  • Output token pricing dropped to $20 per million tokens, down from $25 for Opus 5, with cached input reads falling 60%.

Sources & Mentions

5 external resources covering this update

Claude Opus 5.5 for Code Review: More Catches, More Tokens

YouTube

Anthropic releases Opus 5.5 with lower prices and Fable-level performance

TechCrunch

Anthropic releases Claude Opus 5.5, beating Fable 5.1 on key agentic benchmarks at 60% cheaper API price

VentureBeat

Anthropic upgrades Claude with new Opus 5.5 model, details here

9to5Mac

Anthropic releases Claude Opus 5.5, and it's not just more powerful: it's cheaper, too

XDA Developers

Claude Opus 5.5 Joins the Copilot Model PickerGitHub Copilot added Claude Opus 5.5, Anthropic's newest Opus-tier model, to its model picker across ten surfaces, including Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio, Copilot CLI, the GitHub Copilot coding agent, the GitHub Copilot app, github.com, GitHub Mobile, JetBrains IDEs, Xcode, and Eclipse. GitHub positions the model for agentic coding, long-running autonomous tasks, and broader knowledge work.

Fewer Steps, Lower CostIn GitHub's early testing, Opus 5.5 resolved tasks comparably to the earlier Claude Opus 5 while using significantly fewer steps and tokens, and it recovered from errors more quickly during multistep tasks. Independent coverage backs up the efficiency story: TechCrunch and VentureBeat both reported that Anthropic priced Opus 5.5 well below Opus 5, with output tokens dropping to $20 per million (versus $25 previously) and cached input reads falling 60%, while the model held its own against Anthropic's larger Fable 5.1 on several agentic coding benchmarks. A CodeRabbit review on YouTube found Opus 5.5 caught 72% of known bugs in code-review tests, up from 56% for Opus 5, though it used more tokens per review to get there.

Watermarking and AccessClaude Opus 5.5 includes text watermarking that Anthropic says does not change the meaning, quality, or readability of its outputs, and adds no extra tokens or cost. The model is rolling out gradually to Copilot Pro+, Max, Business, and Enterprise subscribers under usage-based billing at provider list pricing. Enterprise and Business administrators can manage access through Copilot's model policy settings, where newly released models are enabled by default unless an admin turns them off.

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