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.What you’ll learn:Why I think we’ve hit an intelligence overhang and what that means for which model variables actually matter nowHow Opus 5’s “neurotic” personality showed up in real coding sessions, including a merge conflict it refused to touchWhat 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 leaderboardThe one use case where Opus 5 earned straight 5s from meMy 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: https://www.anthropic.com/news• GPT‑5.6 Sol: https://openai.com/index/previewing-gpt-5-6-sol/• Sonnet 5: https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-sonnet-5• Gemini 3.1 Pro: https://deepmind.google/models/gemini/pro/—Where to find Claire Vo:ChatPRD: https://www.chatprd.ai/Website: https://clairevo.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/X: https://x.com/clairevo—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].