I’ve been testing every major frontier model release since the start of the year, and when Anthropic dropped Sonnet 5, I wanted more than a vibe check. I got tired of one-off tests I couldn’t repeat or compare over time, so I built something better: the How I AI Bench, a repeatable eval harness I constructed live using Claude Code while recording this episode. I ran Sonnet 5 blind against four other frontier models (Sonnet 4.6, Opus 4.8, GPT-5.5, and Gemini 3 Pro) across PRD quality, prototype generation, agentic task completion, and agent personality. The results were not what I expected.
Listen or watch on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts
What you’ll learn:
What Anthropic claims Sonnet 5 improves over Sonnet 4.6, and where the benchmark data actually backs that up
How I built the How I AI Bench in under 45 minutes using Claude Code, starting from my own stored session history
Why I combined human vibe scoring (70%) with LLM as judge scoring (30%) instead of trusting either alone
How to set up a local HTML scoring page so you can rate AI outputs on gut feel and export those scores as JSON
Which model I recommend for PRDs, which for complex prototypes, and which for chatting with an agent daily
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In this episode, we cover:
([00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ-1LB2hF-Q)) Sonnet 5 is out
([01:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ-1LB2hF-Q&t=115s)) What Anthropic claims
([04:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ-1LB2hF-Q&t=242s)) Why I’m done with one-off vibe checks
([05:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ-1LB2hF-Q&t=305s)) Building the How I AI Bench live with Claude Code
([07:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ-1LB2hF-Q&t=462s)) The scoring system
([10:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ-1LB2hF-Q&t=643s)) Agent voice eval
([11:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ-1LB2hF-Q&t=717s)) Quick recap
([13:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ-1LB2hF-Q&t=838s)) Results: The How I AI index leaderboard
([21:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ-1LB2hF-Q&t=1281s)) What I’m improving for the next run
([22:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ-1LB2hF-Q&t=1336s)) Generating a Claire-weighted index
([23:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ-1LB2hF-Q&t=1433s)) Model-by-task recommendations
Tools referenced:
• Claude Sonnet 5: [https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-sonnet-5](https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-sonnet-5)
• Claude Opus 4.8: [https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-opus-4-8](https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-opus-4-8)
• GPT-5.5 (OpenAI): [https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-5-5/](https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-5-5/)
• Gemini 3 Pro (Google DeepMind): [https://deepmind.google/models/gemini/pro/](https://deepmind.google/models/gemini/pro/)
• Cursor: [https://www.cursor.com/](https://www.cursor.com/)
Other references:
• SWE-bench Pro (agentic coding benchmark referenced): https://www.swebench.com/
Where to find Claire Vo:
ChatPRD: [https://www.chatprd.ai/](https://www.chatprd.ai/)
Website: [https://clairevo.com/](https://clairevo.com/)
LinkedIn: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/)
Production and marketing by [https://penname.co/](https://penname.co/). For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [[email protected]](/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection).