# Source: https://docs.pinecone.io/release-notes/2026.md

# Source: https://docs.pinecone.io/assistant-release-notes/2026.md

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.pinecone.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# 2026 releases

## January 2026

<Update label="2026-01-28" tags={["Assistant"]}>
  ### Claude model deprecation for Assistant

  Anthropic has [deprecated](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/model-deprecations) the Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Claude 3.7 Sonnet models. Pinecone Assistant automatically routes all chat requests that specify `claude-3-5-sonnet` or `claude-3-7-sonnet` to Claude Sonnet 4.5, which provides enhanced intelligence at the same price. No code changes are required.

  To update your code to explicitly use Claude Sonnet 4.5, set `model: "claude-sonnet-4-5"` in your chat requests. For more information, see [Choose a model](/guides/assistant/chat-with-assistant#choose-a-model).
</Update>

<Update label="2026-01-27" tags={["Assistant"]}>
  ### Claude Sonnet 4.5 now available for Assistant chat

  Pinecone Assistant now supports Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 4.5 model. To use this model, set `model: "claude-sonnet-4-5"` in your [chat](/reference/api/latest/assistant/chat_assistant) requests. In the Pinecone console, Claude Sonnet 4.5 is also available as a selection in the **Chat model** dropdown menu in the playground for each assistant.

  For more information, see [Choose a model](/guides/assistant/chat-with-assistant#choose-a-model).
</Update>

<Update label="2026-01-23" tags={["API"]}>
  ### Metadata filter limit: 10,000 values per `$in`/`$nin` operator

  Pinecone now enforces a limit of 10,000 values per `$in` or `$nin` operator in metadata filter expressions. This limit helps ensure consistent query performance and protects shared infrastructure from excessive load caused by very large filters.

  Requests that exceed this limit will fail with a `400 - BAD_REQUEST` error.

  If your application currently uses large `$in` filters (especially for access control), consider these approaches:

  * **Namespace-based isolation** (recommended): Create separate namespaces for each tenant instead of filtering by thousands of tenant IDs. This can also reduce query costs (queries on a 1 GB namespace cost 1 RU instead of 100 RUs for a 100 GB namespace with filtering).
  * **Access control groups**: Filter by organization, project, or role identifiers instead of individual user IDs.
  * **Post-filter client-side**: Retrieve a larger top K without filtering, then filter results in your application.

  For more information, see [Metadata filter limits](/reference/api/database-limits#metadata-filter-limits) and [Design for multi-tenancy](/guides/index-data/data-modeling#design-for-multi-tenancy).
</Update>

<Update label="2026-01-16" tags={["API"]}>
  ### Request-per-second limits for data plane operations

  Pinecone now enforces request-per-second rate limits on data plane operations (query, upsert, delete, and update) at the namespace level. These limits are set to 100 requests per second per namespace for all plans and provide protection against excessive request rates.

  Request-per-second limits are enforced in addition to existing read unit and write unit limits. If you exceed a request-per-second limit, you'll receive a `429 - TOO_MANY_REQUESTS` error.

  For more information, see [Database limits](/reference/api/database-limits#data-plane-operations-requests-per-second-limits).
</Update>

<Update label="2026-01-15" tags={["API"]}>
  ### Pagination support for fetch by metadata

  The [Fetch by metadata](/reference/api/latest/data-plane/fetch_by_metadata) operation now supports pagination, allowing you to fetch large result sets in multiple requests. Use the `paginationToken` parameter to retrieve the next page of results.

  When there are more results available, the response includes a `pagination` object with a `next` token. Pass this token as the `paginationToken` parameter in subsequent requests to fetch the next page. When there are no more results, the response does not include a `pagination` object.

  For more information, see [Fetch records by metadata](/guides/manage-data/fetch-data#fetch-records-by-metadata).
</Update>