Claude's popularity is forcing it to hit the brakes on users
All of that conquering is starting to stretch Claude thin.
Earlier this week, Anthropic adjusted its usage limits for Claude free, Pro, and Max subscribers. While weekly limits don’t change, it means users will approach their cap more quickly when they are using Claude during peak hours, which Anthropic defines as between 5 am to 11 am Pacific Time.
“We’ve landed a lot of efficiency wins to offset this, but ~7% of users will hit session limits they wouldn’t have before, particularly for pro tiers,” Thariq Shihipar, who works on Claude, wrote on X. “If you run token-intensive background jobs, shifting them to off-peak hours will stretch your session limits further.”
To manage growing demand for Claude we’re adjusting our 5 hour session limits for free/Pro/Max subs during peak hours. Your weekly limits remain unchanged.
During weekdays between 5am–11am PT / 1pm–7pm GMT, you’ll move through your 5-hour session limits faster than before.
— Thariq (@trq212) March 26, 2026
“I know this was frustrating,” Shihipar wrote. “We’re continuing to invest in scaling efficiently. I’ll keep you posted on progress.”
Anthropic has seen a surge in mainstream interest since CEO Dario Amodei refused to grant the Pentagon unfettered access to the company’s AI models. Amodei has previously said the company’s core focus is its enterprise business.
Like its competitors, Anthropic is experiencing growing pains as it tries to balance out its available compute. The reality of tools like OpenClaw, an open-source AI agent, is that users can tap into the full potential of AI models like never before. At the same time, the explosion of agents means users are blowing through compute like never before.
OpenAI announced earlier this week that it is jettisoning Soraits once-popular TikTok-esque AI video generation app, as it refocuses its compute on core services.
In December, Amodei appeared to mock OpenAI CEO Sam Altman‘s ambitious spending plans for mega data centers to meet future compute demands. AI frontier model makers and Big Tech, including Microsoft and Google, have dedicated enormous resources to keeping up in the AI race.
“I think there’s some amount of irreducible risk here, and I absolutely don’t want to deny this,” Amodei said during The New York Times’ Dealbook Summit. “But at the same time as that, I think there are some players who are not managing that risk well, who are taking unwise risks.”