Extended Thinking vs. Standard Responses

Claude's extended thinking mode lets the model reason through complex problems step by step before producing a response. For research tasks, this changes the quality of analysis significantly — but it's not always the right choice.

Use extended thinking when: the research requires multi-step reasoning, cross-referencing multiple data points, weighing competing evidence, or producing nuanced analysis. These are tasks where "thinking out loud" improves the output.

Use standard responses when: you need a quick factual lookup, a simple list, or a straightforward format conversion. Extended thinking adds latency without improving quality for simple tasks.