In my limited experience, that's mostly since the 4.6 release. I noticed that with the same prompt, it answers much more briefly. A bit jarring indeed, but I prefer it. Less bs and filler, and less burning off electricity for nothing.

This behavior first appeared in 4.5, mostly for specific types of questions and in "natural conversation" workflows. 4.6 might have pushed it further.

It’s probably an offshoot of making Claude more and more suitable for code/cowork.