Next Claude Opus (5.6+) Release Date prediction

Anthropic's official model page lists Claude Opus 5.5 (`claude-opus-5-5`) as the latest model, released September 22, 2026. The company's release notes describe it as the first model in the new Claude 5.5 family, and say it costs 40% less to run than Opus 5. The newsroom listing returned by the research shows Opus 5.5 as the most recent Opus announcement. That matters because a qualifying release has to be an Opus model numbered 5.6 or higher and open to the general public. A closed beta or private access would not count. The forecast leans toward no such release by November 30, 2026, because the latest Opus on Anthropic's own pages is still 5.5. The release history in the notes gives some context. Opus 4.6 launched on February 5, 2026, and Opus 5 on July 24, 2026. Opus 5.5 followed on September 22, 2026. I will not compute an average gap from those dates, since the evidence does not state one. The notes also list Opus 4.7 and 4.8 launches, but I cannot date them from the supplied material. There is a real risk on the other side. Anthropic has shipped Opus versions in quick succession, and a surprise launch inside the remaining weeks would flip this outcome. The research here also contains no timeline for a successor, so that risk cannot be sized from the evidence. The thing to watch is Anthropic's release notes and model page. A new Opus entry numbered 5.6 or above, marked generally available, would settle it.