Claude Sonnet 4.6 is Anthropic’s latest large‑language model that pushes the context window to a full 1 million tokens, offers the same capability on a free tier, and introduces real‑time PC control that lets the model send keyboard and mouse commands. It lets you feed entire documents or codebases into a single prompt and watch the AI act directly on your desktop.
Why the Million‑Token Context Matters
With a 1 M‑token window you can drop a research paper, a multi‑page code repository, or a long chat history into one request. The model can reason across the whole input without you having to split it into chunks, which cuts down on API calls and reduces orchestration overhead.
Real‑Time PC Control: How It Works
The new “PC‑use” mode lets Claude send keyboard shortcuts and mouse clicks to your machine. You can ask it to open a spreadsheet, run a macro, or debug a script, and the actions happen live on your screen. This turns the model from a pure text generator into an interactive assistant that can actually execute tasks.
Setting Up PC Control
- Enable the pc‑control flag in the API request.
- Run the model in a trusted environment and lock it behind your internal authentication.
- Rotate tokens regularly and isolate the execution environment to keep the system secure.
Free Tier and Pricing Advantages
Anthropic ships the full million‑token capability on its free plan, so you can experiment without spending a dime. For developers and startups, that means you can prototype ambitious “agentic” applications—software that not only suggests actions but performs them—without the premium cost of higher‑tier models.
Practical Use Cases
Here are a few ways you might put Claude Sonnet 4.6 to work:
- Code Review Automation: Paste an entire repository and ask the model to flag potential bugs, then let it open your IDE and highlight the lines.
- Report Generation: Feed raw data and let the AI draft a full report, format tables, and export to PDF—all in one prompt.
- Desktop Task Sequencing: Command the model to launch applications, run macros, and collect results, freeing you from repetitive clicks.
- Learning Assistant: Provide a textbook chapter and ask the AI to create interactive quizzes that appear on your screen.
Security and Governance Considerations
Real‑time PC control is powerful, but it also expands the attack surface. Make sure you keep API keys secret, enforce strict token rotation, and run the model in isolated containers. Treat the feature like any privileged access—grant it only to trusted users and environments.
What This Means for You
If you’re a solo coder, a product team, or an IT department, Claude Sonnet 4.6 invites you to rethink how you structure prompts and orchestrate workflows. You can now hand over more of the “busy work” to an AI that truly understands the full breadth of your documents or codebases. And because the free tier is available right now, you can try it tomorrow without a credit card. Will you give it a spin?
