Claude has been having a moment — can it keep it up?

Anthropic's Claude and its coding platform, Claude Code, have recently gained significant traction among engineers and in C-suites, with word-of-mouth exposure spiking while OpenAI's dipped. This success is attributed largely to the Opus 4.5 model, released before Thanksgiving, which provided a paradigm shift in capability, allowing users to complete complex, long-horizon tasks with less handholding. Creator Boris Cherny even used Claude Code to write 100% of his code in December. To maintain this momentum, Anthropic is releasing Opus 4.6, which promises improved speed and precision for agentic work. Industry experts suggest Claude's success is due to its superior user experience compared to competitors like OpenAI's offerings, and its stickiness, derived from features like customizable instruction files. However, Anthropic faces challenges, including potential security vulnerabilities in Opus 4.5, rising competition, and a slight drop in public trust, necessitating that Opus 4.6 solidifies its position as a reliable, focused enterprise productivity tool.

(Source：The Verge)