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Update
What changedThe Register adds a clearer measure of the release race: Anthropic’s model cadence has moved from roughly quarterly in 2025 to almost monthly in 2026. Opus 5.5 arrived 21 days after Fable 5.1 and Mythos 5.1, while OpenAI released GPT-6 Astra on 3 September and GPT-6 Sol and Luna 19 days later.
The same report says Anthropic’s Opus 5.5 is priced 20% below Opus 5 for input and output tokens, with cache reads down 60%, while OpenAI has cut GPT-6 Sol and Luna API prices by 50% against its GPT-5.6 promotional pricing. Those figures come from the companies’ announcements and comparisons, alongside Artificial Analysis estimates cited by The Register, rather than a neutral purchasing test.
That creates a sharper tension around Dario Amodei’s 12 September call to slow the pace of capability improvements.
Sources and evidence- Frontier AI keeps racing despite calls to slow down – The Register: The Register reports that Anthropic’s model release cadence has accelerated to almost monthly in 2026, while Anthropic and OpenAI are reducing prices as their leaders and employees call for greater caution around frontier AI development.
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