Profound: Sonnet 5.5 asks for context 5x more than Sonnet 5
Profound ran 711 prompts through Anthropic’s API 20 times each on Claude Sonnet 5 and Sonnet 5.5 with web search enabled — 28,440 answers total — and found Sonnet 5.5 asked readers for context (details about their specific situation) in 60.6% of answers, against 12.5% for Sonnet 5. Sonnet 5.5 also named the current year in 59% of its query fan-outs, more than double Sonnet 5’s rate, and its most-cited pages skewed newer, with a median age of 107 days against 164 days for Sonnet 5. Per Profound, both models carried roughly 12 inline citations per searched answer.
Why it matters: The shift toward more context-seeking and fresher sources suggests AEO content that states dates clearly and speaks to a reader's specific situation is more likely to be used by newer models.
Glossary: Query fan-out
Posted to the wire October 13, 2026. Edited by Joe Balewski.