Anthropic is betting that artificial intelligence will reshape scientific research with the launch of Claude Science, a new AI workbench designed specifically for scientists. The platform, unveiled on Tuesday, brings literature analysis, computational biology tools, reproducible code generation, and large-scale computing workflows into a single interface. This marks Anthropic's most significant expansion into life sciences, aiming to accelerate scientific discovery and healthcare innovation.

Platform Capabilities

Claude Science is built to support researchers across genomics, proteomics, structural biology, and cheminformatics. The platform integrates more than 60 scientific databases and tools, enabling scientists to generate publication-ready figures, analyze complex datasets, and manage compute-intensive workloads through a unified AI interface.

Anthropic said the platform connects with Nvidia Corp's BioNeMo Agent Toolkit, providing researchers with native access to specialized biology models such as Evo 2, Boltz-2, and OpenFold3. The company is initially releasing Claude Science in beta for Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise users.

Market Context

The launch comes as the prominence of AI in corporate dealmaking cools. According to PwC's analysis of the world's 100 largest corporate M&A transactions, around one-third of deals in 2025 cited AI as a strategic rationale. That figure fell to 17% during the first half of 2026.

The decline was particularly evident in pharma and life sciences, where AI references were among the lowest across sectors. PwC noted that AI mentions have become concentrated in industries closest to the infrastructure buildout, including technology, manufacturing, and power and utilities. Buyers are becoming more disciplined about where the technology creates durable value, increasingly favoring partnerships and targeted investments over outright acquisitions.

Strategic Implications

Anthropic's move suggests a different path to monetizing AI in healthcare. Instead of positioning itself for acquisition by pharmaceutical giants, Anthropic is aiming to make Claude Science the daily research layer for scientists, covering tasks from reviewing literature and designing experiments to analyzing genomic data and preparing manuscripts. If adopted widely, this strategy could establish AI as essential scientific infrastructure.

The launch puts focus on companies competing to become the default AI platform for scientific research, including Tempus AI, Inc., Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Schrodinger, Inc., Absci Corporation, and Nvidia's healthcare ecosystem.

Anthropic has introduced Claude Sonnet 5, a more capable option for developers building autonomous "agent" systems that can plan multi-step workflows, use tools, and execute tasks with limited human input. Sonnet 5 is designed to operate more independently than prior Sonnet versions, including the ability to interact with tools such as web browsers and terminals to complete longer, more complex task chains, the company said in a blog post.

The model is rolling out across its product suite, where it will serve as the default for Free and Pro users. It will also be available to Max, Team and Enterprise customers, as well as through Claude Code and the Claude Platform API under the name claude-sonnet-5.

Safety and Security Features

On safety, Anthropic said internal testing indicated Sonnet 5 produces fewer undesirable behaviors than Sonnet 4.6 and shows improved resistance to prompt injection attacks and malicious instructions. The company also emphasized that Sonnet 5 was not explicitly trained for cybersecurity applications and performs significantly below its top-tier Opus models on evaluations involving potentially harmful cyber capabilities.

"We did not deliberately train Sonnet 5 on cybersecurity tasks. It can perform some routine, non-harmful cyber tasks, but on evaluations testing potentially dangerous cyber skills, such as developing software exploits, it shows substantially poorer performance than models such as Opus 4.8 and Mythos 5," the company said.

Anthropic said it has enabled cyber safeguards by default in Sonnet 5, using real-time detection and blocking systems similar to those deployed in its Opus models, while noting the guardrails are less restrictive than those applied to Fable 5.

Rate Limits and Availability

The company also raised rate limits across Chat, Cowork, Claude Code and the Claude Platform, citing higher token usage associated with increased "effort" settings in the new model. The broader availability aims to support developers integrating agentic AI capabilities into their applications.