Anthropic adds Opus, Sonnet to Claude voice mode
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- Anthropic updated Claude's voice mode to let users choose between Opus, Sonnet, and Haiku models, whereas voice mode had previously been powered only by Haiku and was unsuited for complex work
- The new voice mode defaults to the fastest version of whichever model the user last selected in text chat, and is designed for longer sessions like rehearsing a client pitch or brainstorming product-market research
- Claude's voice mode can now connect to apps including Gmail, Google Calendar, Slack, Canva, and Notion, letting users update meetings, draft emails, or create documents by voice
- This tool-use capability distinguishes Claude from OpenAI's voice mode, which the source notes still cannot access different tools to get work done
- Anthropic supports 10 languages in voice mode — English, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish — though users must manually specify the language
- The update is available in beta across platforms to all users, but free users are limited to the Haiku model with only one connected app
- Anthropic made no changes to the underlying voice model, so users won't see conversational improvements such as better interruption handling that came with OpenAI's release
Why it matters: Claude voice users on paid tiers gain the same model flexibility they already have in text chat, plus tool integration that OpenAI's voice mode lacks — a tangible capability gap between the two assistants. Free users remain locked to Haiku with one app, a clear gating lever to push upgrades.
