Prompt caching on the Anthropic API introduces a method for developers to store and reuse prompt context in API calls with the Claude AI models. This feature is now accessible in public beta for models like Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Claude 3 Haiku, with upcoming support for Claude 3 Opus.
The key advantage of prompt caching is its ability to significantly reduce both costs and latency. By allowing the storage of large, reusable prompts, developers can cut costs by up to 90% and decrease latency by up to 85%. This efficiency is achieved because the AI does not need to process the full prompt repeatedly in each API call, but instead pulls from pre-cached data.
Prompt caching proves particularly useful in various applications:
– **Conversational Agents**: Enhances interactions by quickly retrieving long sets of instructions or documents.
– **Coding Assistants**: Keeps a summarized version of a codebase, aiding in better autocomplete and query responses.
– **Large Document Processing**: Processes extensive documents without increased latency, regardless of content complexity.
– **Detailed Instruction Sets**: Developers can embed extensive examples to fine-tune the AI’s response quality.
– **Agentic Search and Tool Use**: Facilitates scenarios that require multiple tool calls and iterations, efficiently managing repetitive information.
Real-world application examples show notable improvements in performance metrics. For instance, a conversation using a cached 100,000 token prompt with Claude 3.5 Sonnet saw latency drop from 11.5 seconds to 2.4 seconds, along with a 90% cost reduction. Similarly, other scenarios highlighted significant latency reductions and cost savings, making this feature highly attractive for tasks requiring repetitive use of large data sets.
Pricing for cached prompts is based on input token volume and usage frequency, with a notable discount on using cached content compared to writing new data to the cache.
Notion, one of Anthropic’s early customers, has integrated prompt caching to enhance their AI assistant, resulting in faster response times and lower operational costs.
To learn more about how prompt caching can benefit your applications and to view detailed documentation and pricing, visit Anthropic’s prompt caching feature page.