Claude Opus 5 review: this model is brilliant (but annoying)

I’m tired of new models. Every week there’s a new benchmark, a new frontier intelligence claim, a new thing to test. But here we are, because Opus 5 just dropped and I’ve had real hands-on time with it, so you’re getting the honest version.

This is my full Opus 5 review: personality analysis, live benchmark results from my 7-model How I AI eval, and an actual verdict on whether I’m swapping it in. Spoiler: the answer surprised me.

Listen or watch on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts

What you’ll learn:

Why I think we’ve hit an intelligence overhang and what that means for which model variables actually matter now

How Opus 5’s “neurotic” personality showed up in real coding sessions, including a merge conflict it refused to touch

What I learned from asking both Opus 5 and GPT‑5.6 Sol “who’s smarter, you or me?”

Where Opus 5, GPT‑5.6 Sol, Sonnet 5, and Gemini 3.1 Pro actually landed on the HIA benchmark leaderboard

The one use case where Opus 5 earned straight 5s from me

My actual plan for using Opus 5 going forward

In this episode, I cover:

( 00:00 ) Opus 5 is here

( 03:15 ) First impressions

( 06:12 ) Opus 5 vs. GPT‑5.6 Sol personality comparison

( 14:39 ) Claude Slop: the verbosity problem and why it makes my blood boil

( 16:55 ) How the How I AI benchmark works (7 models, 6 tasks, blind scoring)

( 18:30 ) Live benchmark results: the leaderboard reveal

( 23:25 ) My verdict and how I’ll actually use Opus 5

Tools referenced:

• Claude Opus 5:

• Anthropic blog: ​​ anthropic.com/news

• GPT‑5.6 Sol: openai.com/index/previewing-gpt-5-6-sol

• Sonnet 5: anthropic.com/news/claude-sonnet-5

• Gemini 3.1 Pro: deepmind.google/models/gemini/pro

Where to find Claire Vo:

ChatPRD: chatprd.ai

Website: clairevo.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/clairevo

X: x.com/clairevo

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