Compare leading AI models & Understand which is the best model for your needs. [Updated 10th of June]
June 2026 opened with a wave of open-weight and challenger launches. On June 4, NVIDIA released Nemotron 3 Ultra, the most capable open model under a fully permissive license at 550 billion parameters. MiniMax M3 shipped on June 1 with frontier coding and a 1-million-token context window, Microsoft entered the race with its MAI models at the Build conference on June 2, and Reve 2.0 jumped to #2 on the Arena text-to-image leaderboard on June 3. The model to watch is Gemini 3.5 Pro, which Google says will reach general availability this month.
May set up the current board. Claude Opus 4.8 (May 28) took the #1 spot on the Intelligence Index, Alibaba’s Qwen 3.7 Max (May 20) entered the top tier, and Google I/O 2026 dropped Gemini 3.5 Flash and the 24/7 agent Gemini Spark on May 19. OpenAI added ChatGPT Personal Finance (May 15) and Codex Mobile (May 14), Baidu’s ERNIE 5.1 landed at #4 globally on the LMArena Search Arena on May 8, and Miami startup Subquadratic shipped SubQ with a 12-million-token context window on May 5. Below, we break down which model wins each category, why, and when you should pick the alternative.
GPT-5.5 is the best AI model for daily chat and knowledge work at Intelligence Index 59-60, Claude Opus 4.8 is the best overall and the best for coding and long-running agentic tasks at Intelligence Index 61, Gemini 3.1 Pro is the best for hardest-mode reasoning and accuracy at Intelligence Index 57, Gemini 3.5 Flash is the best for price-performance at the frontier at Intelligence Index 55, Qwen 3.7 Max is the best mid-tier value pick at Intelligence Index 57, Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the best for writing style and instruction-following, ChatGPT Images 2.0 is the best for image generation with readable text, Google Veo 3.1 is the best for AI video after OpenAI retired the Sora 2 consumer app, Grok 4.3 is the best for real-time X and web context, and Gemini Spark plus Claude Cowork are the two AI agents most worth your attention right now.
AI models change fast. New versions are released, performance shifts, and strengths evolve over time. To keep this comparison accurate and up to date, we publish a Best AI of the Month analysis every month, based on the latest model updates and real-world performance. Below are our most recent monthly rankings, where we take a deeper look at how the leading AI models performed during each month.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the absolute best for writing style, voice fidelity, and complex instruction-following. It is available at $3 / $15 per 1M tokens and currently commands an outstanding 1,643 Elo on the GDPval-AA writing index.
GPT-5.5 serves as OpenAI’s primary everyday default chatbot. Launched on April 23, 2026, it boasts a 60% drop in hallucinations compared to GPT-5.4 and is available free in ChatGPT or at $5 / $30 per 1M tokens via API.
ChatGPT Images 2.0 holds the top crown for rendering precise multilingual text and infographic-style layouts. It is included in ChatGPT Plus and Pro plans, while the refreshed Nano Banana Pro stack serves as the photoreal alternative.
Google Veo 3.1 is the premier video-generation model left standing following the official discontinuation of Sora 2 on April 26, 2026. It is easily accessible within the Gemini app, Google AI Studio, and Vertex AI.
Claude Opus 4.8 leads Anthropic’s SWE-bench verified performance rankings and is the absolute developer favourite inside Cursor and Claude Code. It runs at $5 / $25 per 1M tokens, with Gemini 3.5 Flash as the budget alternative.
Grok 4.3 features the most permissive guardrails of any frontier model. Coupled with its native real-time X news feed integration, it easily generates downloadable files such as PDFs and spreadsheets for $30/month via SuperGrok.
Gemini 3.1 Pro scores 94.3% on GPQA Diamond, 44.4% on Humanity’s Last Exam, and 77.1% on ARC-AGI-2. It features native, highly reliable Google Search grounding for real-time factual inquiries.
GPT-5.5 Pro achieves 39.6% on FrontierMath Tier 4, nearly doubling Claude Opus 4.8 Thinking’s 22.9% score. Qwen 3.7 Max is the new value alternative, scoring an impressive 97.1 on the February 2026 HMMT math index.
Anthropic released Claude Fable 5, the public, safeguarded version of its Mythos-class frontier model. Fable 5 and Mythos 5 share the same weights and training; the only difference is the safety layer wrapped around Fable 5, which falls back to Opus 4.8 on roughly 5% of high-risk requests across cybersecurity, biology, and model distillation. It runs a 1-million-token context window and is built for long-horizon agentic work, autonomous jobs running for hours or days inside agent systems, rather than quick single-turn chat. Pricing is $10 per million input tokens and $50 per million output tokens. Read our cover: Claude Fable 5
NVIDIA released NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra as the most capable model released under a fully permissive open license, a 550-billion-parameter Mixture-of-Experts design with roughly 55 billion active parameters per token on a hybrid Mamba-2 transformer with LatentMoE routing. It scores 48 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 65-70.4% on SWE-Bench Verified (depending on the agent scaffold), 91% on PinchBench agent productivity, and 95% on Ruler long-context at 1M tokens. NVIDIA claims 5x higher throughput than other open models in its class and up to 30% lower cost on agentic tasks, hitting 300+ tokens/second on DeepInfra. Weights ship under the Linux Foundation’s OpenMDW-1.1 license, and a single-node deployment needs 8 B200 GPUs. That 48 trails the higher-scoring but restrictively or unclearly licensed MiniMax M3 (55) and Kimi K2.6 (54), yet its OpenMDW license makes it the most openly usable model at this capability level. It is available via Perplexity, OpenRouter, Hugging Face, AWS, Google Cloud, and 25+ inference providers.
MiniMax released MiniMax M3 with frontier coding, native image and video understanding, and a 1-million-token context window (512K guaranteed minimum). It uses MiniMax Sparse Attention for roughly 1/20 the per-token compute at 1M context, with prefill more than 9x faster and decoding more than 15x faster than the prior generation, outputting around 100 tokens/second (about 3x faster than Opus). It scores 59.0% on SWE-Bench Pro, 66.0% on Terminal-Bench 2.1, 83.5 on BrowseComp, and 74.2% on MCP Atlas. API access launched with a 7-day 50%-off promotion at $0.30 input / $1.20 output per million tokens (about $0.06 cached input); the regular rate is roughly $0.60 input / $2.40 output per million for prompts up to 512K, rising to $1.20 / $4.80 above 512K. Consumer plans run $20, $50, and $120 per month. It debuts at Intelligence Index 55, the highest of any open model this month, though MiniMax has not disclosed the parameter count and the final license was unconfirmed at launch (an earlier MiniMax model restricted commercial use, so check the terms when the weights drop). Open weights and a technical report are due on Hugging Face and GitHub within about ten days.
At its Build developer conference, Microsoft entered the model race with the MAI family. MAI-Thinking-1 is a reasoning flagship (35B active parameters, MoE, 256K context) scoring 97.0 on AIME 2025, 52.8 on SWE-Bench Pro, and 46.0 on Terminal-Bench 2.0, now in private preview. MAI-Code-1-Flash (~5B params) is optimised for VS Code and the GitHub Copilot CLI, beating Claude Haiku 4.5 on SWE-Bench Verified (71.6 vs 66.6) and SWE-Bench Pro (51.2 vs 35.2) while using up to 60% fewer tokens. The lineup also includes MAI-Image-2.5 (#3 on the text-to-image leaderboard), MAI-Voice-2 (15 languages), and MAI-Transcribe-1.5 (43 languages, up to 5x faster). Pricing is not yet published.
Palo Alto startup Reve shipped Reve 2.0, a layout-based image model that jumped to #2 on the Arena text-to-image leaderboard (1,280 points, 3,455 votes). Its “Large Layout Model” architecture separates semantic intent from pixel rendering, enabling native 4K (16-megapixel) output, precise typography, and layout-based editing without image degradation. Reve says it trained on roughly ten times fewer GPUs than competitors. Plans are Free, Lite at $7.99/month, and Pro at $19.99/month, plus a beta developer API.
Gemini 3.5 Pro is the biggest pending launch. Google announced it at I/O on May 19 alongside Gemini 3.5 Flash, but only Flash shipped. Google says it is “hard at work” on 3.5 Pro, that the model is already being used internally, and that it expects to roll it out this month; Sundar Pichai’s stage line was “give us until next month to get it to you.” Google has not yet published specs such as the context window or reasoning modes, so treat any figures circulating now as unconfirmed. We will move it into the main ranking the moment it goes live.
Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.8 and it immediately took the #1 spot on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, where it still holds 61 today, ahead of GPT-5.5 for the first time since OpenAI’s April launch. It leads SWE-bench Pro at 69.2% and GDPval-AA at 1,890 Elo, with four times fewer unflagged code flaws and alignment scores near Claude Mythos Preview. Anthropic also shipped Dynamic Workflows (hundreds of parallel subagents inside Claude Code), effort control across all claude.ai plans, and a Messages API update that injects system directives mid-conversation without breaking prompt cache. It is available via the Claude API, Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud Vertex AI, and Microsoft Foundry.
Alibaba revealed Qwen 3.7 Max at the Alibaba Cloud Summit in Hangzhou. It debuts at Intelligence Index 57 on Artificial Analysis (top 10 globally, tied with Claude Opus 4.7, Gemini 3.1 Pro, and GPT-5.5 (medium)), scoring 92.4 on GPQA Diamond, 97.1 on HMMT 2026 February (the highest score in its comparison group), and 80.4 on SWE-Verified. List API pricing is $2.50 / $7.50 per 1M tokens with $0.25 cached input (a 90% cache discount) and a 1-million-token context window; through June 22, 2026 a 50% promotion cuts this to $1.25 / $3.75 (and cached input to $0.125), and new Alibaba Cloud Model Studio users also get 1 million free tokens on registration. It is API-only via Alibaba Cloud Model Studio, OpenRouter, and Together AI; weights were not released. On price-per-intelligence for long-context agentic work, Qwen 3.7 Max undercuts both Claude Opus 4.7 and GPT-5.5. Read our full Qwen 3.7 Max review.
Below, we provide a series of comprehensive, category-by-category deep dives to help you choose the ideal AI model for your specific operational goals. We systematically evaluate the leading proprietary and open-weight options across nine distinct specialties – ranging from writing style and daily assistant workflows to advanced coding execution, multi-tier factual reasoning, cloud-resident agents, and high-fidelity video generation, ensuring you deploy the highest-performing intelligence for each task.
The best AI for writing is Claude Sonnet 4.6, with GPT-5.5 as the alternative for structured business writing and Claude Opus 4.8 as the alternative for long-form work where every sentence matters. Sonnet 4.6 leads on writing style, voice fidelity, and instruction-following in our hands-on tests, and scores 1,643 Elo on GDPval-AA, Artificial Analysis’s benchmark for real professional deliverables across 44 occupations (a professional-task score, not a prose-only metric). GPT-5.5 Thinking, launched April 23, 2026, is more factually reliable than GPT-5.4 in OpenAI’s selected evaluation and now leads GDPval-AA overall, which makes it the safer default for fact-anchored writing like reports and briefs. Gemini 3.5 Flash (May 19) hit 1,656 GDPval-AA Elo, edging Sonnet 4.6 at lower cost, and is the price-performance pick for bulk content work. Claude Opus 4.8 is the call when you want chain-of-thought editing, long-form revision, or you want the model to push back on weak arguments.
|
Model |
Best For |
Strength |
Weakness |
Price (per 1M tokens) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
Style, voice, instruction-following |
Top of Anthropic line for style in hands-on tests |
More cautious than GPT on opinions |
$3 / $15 |
|
GPT-5.5 |
Business writing, factual reports |
improved factual reliability vs GPT-5.4 (OpenAI eval) |
Style less expressive than Sonnet |
$5 / $30 |
|
Gemini 3.5 Flash |
Bulk content, drafts at scale |
1,656 GDPval-AA Elo, 40% cheaper than Pro |
Weaker on hardest reasoning |
$1.50 / $9.00 |
|
Claude Opus 4.8 |
Long-form, high-stakes copy |
Best editor for argument structure |
Most expensive option here |
$5 / $25 |
|
Grok 4.3 |
Casual, opinionated, X-style |
Native X grounding, fewer guardrails |
Not the natural pick for formal copy |
$1.25 / $2.50 |
Runner-up and alternatives: Gemini 3.5 Flash is the runner-up for sheer volume at near-Sonnet quality, and GPT-5.5 is the runner-up for factual accuracy. Claude Opus 4.8 is the splurge pick for long-form. Grok 4.3 is the niche pick when you want X-style voice or live web context inside the draft.
What changed this month: No major writing-specific launches in June 2026. Gemini 3.5 Flash (May 19) still hits GDPval-AA 1,656 Elo, just above Claude Sonnet 4.6 at 1,643 and just below GPT-5.4 at 1,671, at $1.50 / $9.00 per 1M tokens. GPT-5.5 still leads GDPval-AA overall and stays the default for structured knowledge work, with improved factual reliability over GPT-5.4 in OpenAI’s selected evaluation. Sonnet 4.6 still leads on style.
The best AI for everyday chat and daily assistant work is GPT-5.5 Instant, ChatGPT’s default model, with Claude Opus 4.8 as the alternative when you want a more thoughtful tone and Gemini 3.5 Flash as the budget alternative inside the free Gemini app. On high-stakes prompts, OpenAI reports GPT-5.5 Instant produces 52.5% fewer hallucinated claims than GPT-5.3 Instant, and 37.3% fewer inaccurate claims on conversations users had flagged for factual errors, on top of faster response times and a refreshed memory system that make it the most reliable default for general-purpose tasks. It is available inside ChatGPT (free with limits, Plus at $20/month, Pro at $100/month for roughly 5x Plus usage or $200/month for roughly 20x Plus usage), through the API as the gpt-5.5 model at $5 / $30 per 1M tokens, and bundled inside Fello AI alongside Claude, Gemini, Grok, and DeepSeek.
Claude Opus 4.8 is the better pick when you want a model that pushes back on weak prompts and reasons more carefully through ambiguous questions; Gemini 3.5 Flash is the better pick when you are running everything through the free Gemini app or care about speed.
|
Model |
Best For |
Strength |
Weakness |
Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
GPT-5.5 Instant |
Everyday chat, default assistant |
52.5% fewer hallucinated claims vs 5.3 Instant |
Less expressive than Sonnet 4.6 |
$20/mo Plus; separate gpt-5.5 API at $5 / $30 |
|
Claude Opus 4.8 |
Thoughtful, nuanced answers |
Strong reasoning, pushes back well |
$25 output API is the priciest here |
$20/mo Pro, $5 / $25 API |
|
Gemini 3.5 Flash |
Fast, free, multimodal |
Free in Gemini app, 1M context |
Weaker on hardest reasoning |
Free / $1.50 input / $9.00 output per 1M API |
|
Grok 4.3 |
Live news, X integration |
Real-time X & web grounding |
Smaller ecosystem |
$30/mo SuperGrok |
|
Fello AI |
All five models, one app |
$9.99/mo for ChatGPT + Claude + Gemini + Grok + DeepSeek |
Routed via app, not direct |
$9.99/mo |
Runner-up and alternatives: Claude Opus 4.8 is the runner-up for thoughtful daily use, Gemini 3.5 Flash is the runner-up for fast/free, and Grok 4.3 is the niche pick for live-news heavy days. Fello AI is the natural pick if you want all five top models in one Mac/iOS app for $9.99/month instead of juggling subscriptions.
What changed this month: GPT-5.5 Instant stayed the default for chat with no June regressions. Gemini 3.5 Flash (May 19) made the free Gemini app meaningfully faster and now matches Sonnet 4.6 on GDPval-AA at zero cost in the consumer app. Claude Opus 4.8 holds the #1 spot on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index at 61, ahead of GPT-5.5.
The best AI for image generation is ChatGPT Images 2.0, with Google Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image) as the alternative for photorealism, Reve 2.0 as the new layout-and-typography alternative, and Midjourney v8 as the alternative for stylized art. ChatGPT Images 2.0 (April 21, 2026) leads on text rendering, multilingual scripts, and infographic-style output, which makes it the natural pick when your image needs to contain words. Google’s Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image, with the lower-cost Nano Banana 2 / Gemini 3.1 Flash Image as its sibling) is the natural pick for photoreal portraits and product shots, priced around $0.134 per 1K/2K image and $0.24 per 4K image. Reve 2.0 (June 3) jumped to #2 on the Arena text-to-image leaderboard with native 4K output and editing that preserves typography. Midjourney v8 stays the niche choice for distinctive style.
|
Model |
Best For |
Strength |
Weakness |
Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
ChatGPT Images 2.0 |
Images with readable text |
Best multilingual text rendering |
Less photoreal than Nano Banana |
Included in ChatGPT Plus |
|
Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image) |
Photoreal portraits, products |
Photorealism, ~$0.134 per 1K/2K image |
Style less distinctive |
Gemini app / AI Studio |
|
Reve 2.0 |
Layout, typography, native 4K |
#2 Arena, 16MP output, layout editing |
New, smaller ecosystem |
Free / from $7.99/mo |
|
Midjourney v8 |
Stylized art, illustration |
Aesthetic baseline most artists like |
Weaker on text in image |
$10-$120/mo |
|
Grok Imagine |
NSFW / Spicy Mode |
Most permissive guardrails |
Smallest model behind |
$30/mo SuperGrok |
|
MAI-Image-2.5 |
Microsoft ecosystem |
#3 text-to-image leaderboard, native in Copilot |
Just launched, US-first |
Included in Copilot |
Runner-up and alternatives: Nano Banana Pro is the runner-up overall and the leader for photoreal work; Reve 2.0 is the new runner-up for layout and typography; Midjourney v8 is the niche pick for art-direction-heavy use. Grok Imagine is the only major model that allows Spicy Mode adult content.
What changed this month: Reve 2.0 (June 3) launched at #2 on the Arena text-to-image leaderboard with native 4K rendering and layout-based editing. Microsoft’s MAI-Image-2.5 (June 2) arrived at #3 on the text-to-image leaderboard, native in Copilot. ChatGPT Images 2.0 still leads on text-in-image.
The best AI for video generation is Google Veo 3.1, with Kling 3.5 as the alternative for fast iteration and Runway Gen-4 as the alternative for cinematic motion control. OpenAI retired the Sora 2 consumer web and app experience on April 26, 2026 (the Sora 2 API remains available to developers until September 24, 2026), so OpenAI no longer ranks in this consumer category. Veo 3.1 is available inside the Gemini app, Google AI Studio, and via Vertex AI, with native audio generation, 1080p output, and the strongest physics consistency in the current lineup. Kling 3.5 stays the speed pick at lower cost; Runway Gen-4 is the choice when you need precise camera control. Pika 2.0 and Luma Ray 3 remain credible alternatives for shorter clips.
|
Model |
Best For |
Strength |
Weakness |
Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Google Veo 3.1 |
Highest-fidelity AI video + audio |
1080p, native audio, physics consistency |
Compute-heavy, slower |
Gemini AI Pro / Ultra |
|
Kling 3.5 |
Fast iteration |
Quick turnaround, strong motion |
Less stable on long shots |
From $10/mo |
|
Runway Gen-4 |
Cinematic control |
Best-in-class camera/motion control |
Pricing premium |
Free / $12 mo billed annually, or $15 monthly |
|
Pika 2.0 |
Short clips, social |
Cheap, fast, easy UX |
Lower max resolution |
From $10/mo |
|
Luma Ray 3 |
Photoreal scenes |
Strong realism for landscapes |
Smaller community |
Free / from $9.99/mo |
Runner-up and alternatives: Kling 3.5 is the runner-up overall and the cost-conscious pick; Runway Gen-4 is the runner-up for filmmakers and ad teams. Sora 2‘s consumer app is retired; only the developer API remains, through September 24, 2026.
What changed this month: No major video launches in June 2026, so Veo 3.1 stays uncontested at the top of the still-supported video models. Google is widely expected to refresh Veo at its next AI event; we will update this section when that happens.
The best AI for coding is Claude Opus 4.8, with GPT-5.5 as the proprietary alternative, Gemini 3.5 Flash as the price-performance pick for agent-style coding, Qwen 3.7 Max as the mid-tier value pick, MiniMax M3 as the new open-weight frontier pick, and Microsoft’s MAI-Code-1-Flash as the new budget pick. Claude Opus 4.8 holds Anthropic’s top SWE-bench Verified score and remains the favourite inside Claude Code and Cursor. GPT-5.5 (April 23) is right behind, with OpenAI reporting 58.6% on SWE-Bench Pro and a state-of-the-art 82.7% on Terminal-Bench 2.0, and it leads on FrontierMath.
Gemini 3.5 Flash (May 19) hit 76.2% on Terminal-Bench 2.1 and 83.6% on MCP Atlas at $1.50 / $9.00 per 1M tokens, making it the strongest price-performance option for agent workflows. MiniMax M3 (June 1) posts 59% on SWE-Bench Pro and 66% on Terminal-Bench 2.1 at roughly $0.60 per million input tokens (it launched at a $0.30 promo), the cheapest frontier-class coder you can self-host. Microsoft’s MAI-Code-1-Flash (June 2) beats Claude Haiku 4.5 on SWE-Bench Verified (71.6 vs 66.6) while using up to 60% fewer tokens, rolling out now inside VS Code and the GitHub Copilot CLI. If you want to self-host, Kimi K2.6 (Modified MIT, 58.6% SWE-Bench Pro) and GLM-5.1 (MIT, 58.4% SWE-Bench Pro, built for 8-hour autonomous runs) are the strongest open-weight coders with clear commercial licenses.
|
Model |
Best For |
Strength |
Weakness |
Price (per 1M tokens) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Claude Opus 4.8 |
Long-running agentic coding |
Anthropic-leading SWE-bench, adaptive thinking |
Most expensive |
$5 / $25 |
|
GPT-5.5 |
Frontier proprietary alternative |
58.6% SWE-Bench Pro, 82.7% Terminal-Bench 2.0 |
Less agent-tuned than Opus |
$5 / $30 |
|
Gemini 3.5 Flash |
Agent coding at scale |
76.2% Terminal-Bench, 83.6% MCP Atlas |
Weaker on hardest reasoning |
$1.50 / $9.00 |
|
MiniMax M3 |
Cheap frontier-class, self-host |
59% SWE-Bench Pro, 1M context, multimodal |
Weights/license still rolling out |
~$0.60 input |
|
MAI-Code-1-Flash |
Budget IDE coding |
71.6 SWE-Verified, 60% fewer tokens |
Tiny model, VS Code-first |
Pricing TBD |
|
DeepSeek V4-Flash |
Cheap open-weight coding |
MIT, 1M context, II 47 |
Below V4-Pro on hardest tasks |
$0.14 / $0.28 |
Runner-up and alternatives: GPT-5.5 is the proprietary runner-up; Gemini 3.5 Flash is the runner-up for price-performance; Qwen 3.7 Max is the runner-up for mid-tier value; MiniMax M3 and DeepSeek V4 are the runners-up for open-weight self-hosters. Inside IDEs, Cursor + Claude Opus 4.8 is the most popular pairing and Claude Code is the natural pick if you live in the terminal.
What changed this month: MiniMax M3 (June 1) shipped frontier-class coding as an open-weight model at roughly $0.60 per million input tokens (launch promo $0.30). Microsoft’s MAI-Code-1-Flash (June 2) beat Claude Haiku 4.5 on SWE-Verified while using up to 60% fewer tokens. The May leaders hold at the top: Gemini 3.5 Flash for cheap agent coding and Qwen 3.7 Max at 80.4 SWE-Verified, with Claude Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5 still the picks when budget is not the constraint. Open-weight coding now has a deep bench: MiniMax M3 (II 55), Kimi K2.6, and GLM-5.1 all post roughly 58-59% on SWE-Bench Pro under permissive or commercial licenses.
The best AI for creative writing, brainstorming, and unfiltered ideation is Grok 4.3, with Claude Opus 4.8 as the alternative for structured creative work and Gemini 3.1 Pro as the alternative for multimodal creative tasks. Grok 4.3 (April 30, 2026) has the most permissive guardrails of any frontier model and the strongest native X integration, which makes it the natural pick for opinionated, on-trend, real-time creative work. Claude Opus 4.8 is the better pick when you want a model that holds a long creative thread, edits its own drafts, and engages with the substance of your work. Gemini 3.1 Pro is the better pick when your creative project mixes text with images, video, and live web context.
|
Model |
Best For |
Strength |
Weakness |
Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Grok 4.3 |
Unfiltered, opinionated, on-trend |
Fewest guardrails, X integration |
Less polished for structured work |
$30/mo SuperGrok |
|
Claude Opus 4.8 |
Long-form structured creativity |
Holds long threads, self-edits |
Most cautious of the four |
$20/mo Pro, $5 / $25 API |
|
Gemini 3.1 Pro |
Multimodal creative |
Strong text + image + video chain |
Quotas inside Gemini app |
Free / $2.00-$4.00 API in |
|
ChatGPT-5.5 |
Mainstream creative writing |
Best at hitting briefs |
Heavier guardrails |
$20/mo Plus, $5 / $30 API |
|
Grok Imagine (Spicy Mode) |
NSFW / adult creative |
Most permissive image generation |
Niche use case |
$30/mo SuperGrok |
Runner-up and alternatives: Claude Opus 4.8 is the runner-up overall and the right pick for projects that need to hold together across many turns. Gemini 3.1 Pro is the multimodal runner-up. For adult creative work, Grok Imagine Spicy Mode is the only frontier-grade option.
What changed this month: No major creativity-specific launches in June 2026. Grok 4.3 stayed the category leader. On the multimodal side, the new Reve 2.0 image model (June 3) is a strong addition for creative workflows that need precise layout and typography control.
The best AI for accuracy and research is Gemini 3.1 Pro, with Qwen 3.7 Max as the value alternative and GPT-5.5 Pro as the alternative for hallucination-sensitive work. Gemini 3.1 Pro leads the hardest pure-reasoning tests at 94.3% on GPQA Diamond, 44.4% on Humanity’s Last Exam, and 77.1% on ARC-AGI-2, with native Google Search grounding for live factual answers. Qwen 3.7 Max (May 20) entered the top tier at 92.4 on GPQA Diamond, tied with Claude Opus 4.8, at half the API cost.
GPT-5.5 Pro (April 23) carries GPT-5.5’s factual-reliability gains over GPT-5.4 (claims 23% more likely to be factually correct on OpenAI’s flagged-conversation set), which makes it the right pick when factual reliability matters more than raw benchmark depth. Gemini 3.5 Flash (May 19) outscores Gemini 3.1 Pro on coding and agent benchmarks but trails Pro on these accuracy tests (HLE 40.2% vs 44.4%, ARC-AGI-2 72.1% vs 77.1%), so Pro stays the accuracy pick.
|
Model |
Best For |
Key Benchmark |
Weakness |
Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Gemini 3.1 Pro |
Hardest reasoning + research |
94.3% GPQA, 44.4% HLE, 77.1% ARC-AGI-2 |
API quotas in app |
$2.00-$4.00 / $12.00-$18.00 (tiered) |
|
Qwen 3.7 Max |
Frontier accuracy at value pricing |
92.4 GPQA Diamond |
API-only, no chat front-end |
$1.25 / $3.75 promo through June 22; $2.50 / $7.50 list |
|
GPT-5.5 Pro |
Hallucination-sensitive work |
improved factual reliability vs GPT-5.4 (OpenAI eval) |
Pricier API tier |
$100/mo ChatGPT Pro |
|
Claude Opus 4.8 |
Long-form factual writing |
#1 Intelligence Index (61) |
Slower on hardest math |
$5 / $25 |
|
Grok 4.3 |
Live web facts |
Native real-time grounding |
Smaller benchmark coverage |
$30/mo SuperGrok |
Runner-up and alternatives: Qwen 3.7 Max is the runner-up and the value pick at the frontier. GPT-5.5 Pro is the runner-up for hallucination-sensitive work. Claude Opus 4.8 is the runner-up for long-form factual writing.
What changed this month: No new accuracy leaders shipped in June, so Gemini 3.1 Pro holds the top of the category. The one to watch is Gemini 3.5 Pro, which Google says is in internal use and rolling out this month; its specs are not yet public, but it could reset this ranking the moment it reaches general availability.
The best AI for hard problem-solving is GPT-5.5 Pro for FrontierMath-style abstract math and Qwen 3.7 Max for competition math, with Claude Opus 4.8 as the alternative for long agentic reasoning chains. GPT-5.5 Pro still leads at 39.6% on FrontierMath Tier 4 (nearly double Claude Opus 4.8’s 22.9%), which makes it the right pick when you need step-by-step working on the hardest math and physics problems. Qwen 3.7 Max (May 20) hit 97.1 on HMMT 2026 February, the highest score in its comparison group, and 44.5 on Apex, which makes it the right pick for competition-style problem-solving at half the cost of GPT-5.5 Pro.
Claude Opus 4.7 (April 16) introduced task budgets, a primitive for guiding agentic token spend on long chains; Claude Opus 4.8 (May 28) instead uses adaptive thinking controlled by an effort parameter, and does not support extended-thinking budgets. Gemini 3.5 Flash trades raw reasoning depth for speed and price; for the hardest problems, Gemini 3.1 Pro and the Thinking variants still lead.
|
Model |
Best For |
Key Benchmark |
Weakness |
Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
GPT-5.5 Pro |
Abstract math, physics |
39.6% FrontierMath Tier 4 |
Highest cost tier |
$100/mo ChatGPT Pro |
|
Qwen 3.7 Max |
Competition math |
97.1 HMMT 2026 Feb, 44.5 Apex |
API-only |
$1.25 / $3.75 promo through June 22; $2.50 / $7.50 list |
|
Claude Opus 4.8 |
Long agentic reasoning |
Adaptive thinking, effort control, #1 Intelligence Index |
Slower on math |
$5 / $25 |
|
Gemini 3.1 Pro |
Multimodal reasoning + research |
94.3 GPQA, 77.1 ARC-AGI-2 |
API quotas |
$2.00-$4.00 / $12.00-$18.00 (tiered) |
|
DeepSeek V4-Flash |
Open-weight problem solving |
MIT, 1M context, II 47 |
Below V4-Pro on hardest |
$0.14 / $0.28 |
Runner-up and alternatives: Claude Opus 4.8 is the runner-up overall and the natural pick for agentic, long-chain problem-solving. Gemini 3.1 Pro is the multimodal runner-up. DeepSeek V4-Flash is the open-weight runner-up.
What changed this month: No new problem-solving leaders shipped in June. GPT-5.5 Pro still leads FrontierMath Tier 4 at 39.6% and Qwen 3.7 Max still leads competition math at 97.1 HMMT 2026 February. Reasoning depth remains Pro/Thinking territory; the open-weight MiniMax M3 (June 1) is a strong cheaper option for agentic chains.
The best AI agent right now is Gemini Spark for 24/7 cloud-resident work and Claude Cowork for desktop-resident work, with ChatGPT Codex as the alternative for coding agents and OpenAI Operator-class browser agents as the alternative for web tasks. AI agents are the fastest-moving category of 2026: each top vendor now ships an agent product, and the practical choice is between agents that live in the cloud (run while your laptop is closed) and agents that live on your desktop (drive your apps directly).
Gemini Spark launched at Google I/O on May 19, 2026 and is the first 24/7 cloud agent. Claude Cowork launched in general availability on April 9, 2026 and runs as a desktop agent that drives your local apps. ChatGPT Codex Mobile (May 14) is the pick for coding-agent work, now usable from iOS and Android. Read the full Gemini Spark vs Claude Cowork comparison.
|
Agent |
Best For |
Where It Runs |
Strength |
Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Gemini Spark |
24/7 cloud tasks, Workspace workflows |
Google Cloud VM (always-on) |
First true 24/7 agent, deep Workspace integration |
$100/mo Google AI Ultra |
|
Claude Cowork |
Desktop, app-driving, design + code |
Your Mac/Windows desktop |
Drives local apps, sees your screen |
$20/mo Claude Pro |
|
ChatGPT Codex Mobile |
Coding agent on phone |
OpenAI cloud + iOS/Android |
Approve diffs and redirect work from phone |
Included in ChatGPT plans |
|
Grok Agentic (Grok 4.3) |
Real-time research, X scraping |
xAI cloud |
Native X integration |
$30/mo SuperGrok |
|
OpenAI Operator-class |
Browser tasks, web forms |
OpenAI cloud + your browser |
Web automation |
ChatGPT Pro |
Runner-up and alternatives: Claude Cowork is the runner-up overall and the natural pick when you want the agent on your machine driving your apps. ChatGPT Codex Mobile is the runner-up for coding agents. Grok Agentic is the niche pick for real-time research.
What changed this month: No new consumer agents shipped in June, so the Gemini Spark (cloud) vs Claude Cowork (desktop) choice still drives most agent decisions for individual users. The new open models, NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra and MiniMax M3, both ship strong agentic benchmarks, which matters for teams building their own agents on open weights.
Here is the June 2026 pricing comparison for every leading AI model, in API cost per 1 million tokens and the consumer-subscription price for the same model. Free tiers exist for ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, and DeepSeek. The current cheapest frontier model on a price-per-intelligence basis is Gemini 3.5 Flash at $1.50 / $9.00; the cheapest open-weight frontier coder is MiniMax M3 at around $0.60 per million input tokens (it launched at a $0.30 promo), and the cheapest open-weight model with a 1M context is DeepSeek V4-Flash at $0.14 / $0.28. For a deeper breakdown by tier, see our full AI Pricing Comparison Guide hub.
|
Model |
Input (per 1M) |
Output (per 1M) |
Context Window |
Free access? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
GPT-5.5 |
$5.00 |
$30.00 |
1M (400K in Codex) |
ChatGPT Free; API paid |
|
GPT-5.5 Pro |
$30.00 |
$180.00 |
1M |
ChatGPT Pro from $100/mo ($200 higher-usage tier) |
|
Claude Opus 4.8 |
$5.00 |
$25.00 |
1M |
No (Pro/Max/API) |
|
Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
$3.00 |
$15.00 |
1M |
Claude Free; API paid |
|
Gemini 3.1 Pro |
$2.00 (≤200K) / $4.00 (>200K) |
$12.00 (≤200K) / $18.00 (>200K) |
1M |
Limited Gemini app; API paid |
|
Gemini 3.5 Flash |
$1.50 |
$9.00 |
1M |
Gemini app/AI Studio; free API tier + paid API |
|
Qwen 3.7 Max |
$1.25 promo / $2.50 list |
$3.75 promo / $7.50 list |
1M |
API only |
|
MiniMax M3 |
~$0.60 ($0.30 launch promo) |
~$2.40 (≤512K) |
1M |
Open weights; hosting costs apply |
|
NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra |
Provider-dependent |
Provider-dependent |
1M |
Open weights (OpenMDW); hosting costs apply |
|
Qwen 3.5 (open-weight) |
Self-host / Together |
Self-host / Together |
1M |
Open weights; hosting costs apply |
|
Grok 4.3 |
$1.25 |
$2.50 |
1M |
Free consumer plan; API paid |
|
DeepSeek V4-Pro |
$0.435 ($0.0036 cache-hit) |
$0.87 |
1M |
DeepSeek Chat free; API paid |
|
DeepSeek V4-Flash |
$0.14 |
$0.28 |
1M |
DeepSeek Chat free; API paid |
|
Kimi K2.6 |
Provider-dependent |
Provider-dependent |
256K |
Open weights; hosting costs apply |
|
GLM-5.1 |
Provider-dependent |
Provider-dependent |
200K |
Open weights; hosting costs apply |
|
ERNIE 5.1 |
China-region pricing |
China-region pricing |
256K |
Baidu free tier |
|
Gemini Spark (agent) |
Not API-priced |
Not API-priced |
1M (Gemini base) |
Google AI Ultra $100 or $200/mo |
|
Fello AI (aggregator) |
Routed via app |
Routed via app |
Model-dependent |
$9.99/mo |
The GPT-5.5 and GPT-5.5 Pro rates above are short-context prices; prompts over 272K input tokens bill at the long-context rate of $10 / $45 and $60 / $270 per 1M tokens respectively.
If you want access to multiple AI models without managing separate subscriptions, Fello AI provides GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Perplexity, and more in a single app for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, starting at $9.99/month with a free tier available. Models are updated regularly so you always have access to the latest.
Update — June 8, 2026: Refreshed pricing, rollout status, and benchmarks for June. Grok 4.3 has now reached standard SuperGrok and X Premium+ seats, not just the $300 Heavy tier. For the deep dive, read our Grok 4.3 review. ChatGPT now runs on GPT-5.5, launched on April 23, 2026, while
GPT-5.5 sits at 59 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (#2 of 141 models), two points ahead of Gemini 3.1 Pro at 57. OpenAI’s April 23, 2026 launch flipped a dead heat into a clear ChatGPT lead on most head-to-head benchmarks, and Google answered on May 19, 2026 with Gemini
Claude hit #1 on the App Store in early 2026, pushing ChatGPT out of the top spot for the first time. The catalyst was Anthropic publicly refusing the Pentagon’s demand to deploy its models for autonomous weapons and mass surveillance, after which the government labelled Anthropic a “supply chain risk.”
Choosing the right AI tool in 2026 feels like trying to hit a moving target. New models arrive every few weeks, and what worked best in January might already be outdated today. This guide cuts through the hype to show you exactly which tools are winning right now based on
TL;DR: In January 2026, there isn’t one “best” AI for everything. On LMArena’s Text leaderboard, Gemini 3 Pro leads user-preference rankings, while the updated Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index v4.0 reports GPT-5.2 (with extended reasoning) as the top overall benchmark performer. Choose based on your task: Gemini for daily assistance, Claude
The last twelve months have been crazy for AI, and especially for image generation: Midjourney v6, FLUX.2, Seedream 4.5, Nano Banana Pro, and GPT-Image-1.5 have all tried to grab market share. With each new release, the line between synthetic and real continues to blur — and two of the most
The best AI for students is GPT-5.5 Free inside ChatGPT for general coursework and Gemini 3.5 Flash Free inside the Gemini app for STEM and multimodal study, with Qwen 3.7 Max as the API alternative for harder problem sets and Claude Opus 4.8 as the alternative for essay editing.
Most students don’t need to pay: GPT-5.5 is in the free ChatGPT tier, Gemini 3.5 Flash is in the free Gemini app and AI Studio, Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a free Claude tier, and DeepSeek V4 is free on DeepSeek’s chat site. For step-by-step working on the hardest math, GPT-5.5 Pro leads at 39.6% on FrontierMath Tier 4 but is paid-only; Qwen 3.7 Max is the value alternative at 97.1 HMMT 2026 February with API pricing at $1.25 / $3.75 promo through June 22; $2.50 / $7.50 list.
|
Task |
Best Model |
Why |
Free? |
Alternative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Essays & coursework |
GPT-5.5 |
Free in ChatGPT, improved factual reliability vs 5.4 |
Yes |
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (free Claude) |
|
STEM problem-solving |
GPT-5.5 Pro / Qwen 3.7 Max |
39.6% FrontierMath Tier 4 / 97.1 HMMT 2026 Feb |
Pro paid / Qwen API paid |
Gemini 3.5 Flash (free) |
|
Research & accuracy |
Gemini 3.1 Pro |
Native Google Search grounding |
Yes (Gemini app) |
Claude Opus 4.8 |
|
Writing editing |
Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
Best instruction-following |
Yes (Claude free) |
GPT-5.5 |
|
Multimodal study (PDFs, slides, images) |
Gemini 3.5 Flash |
1M context, free in Gemini app |
Yes |
NotebookLM (Google) |
Runner-up and alternatives: Claude Sonnet 4.6 (free) is the runner-up for essay writing and editing. Gemini 3.5 Flash (free) is the runner-up for multimodal study and PDF ingestion. DeepSeek V4 is the runner-up for problem-solving on a strict zero-cost budget.
The best AI for professional work is GPT-5.5 for daily knowledge work, Claude Opus 4.8 for coding and high-stakes writing, and Gemini Spark for 24/7 agentic workflows. Most professionals get the most out of running two paid subscriptions (ChatGPT Plus at $20/month plus Claude Pro at $20/month, total $40/month), or consolidating with Fello AI at $9.99/month for all five top models in one Mac/iOS app. For agentic work that runs while you sleep, Gemini Spark on Google AI Ultra at $100/month is the only true 24/7 cloud agent.
|
Use Case |
Best Model |
Key Stat |
Price |
Alternative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Daily knowledge work |
GPT-5.5 |
improved factual reliability vs GPT-5.4 (OpenAI eval) |
$20/mo ChatGPT Plus |
Claude Opus 4.8 |
|
Coding (proprietary) |
Claude Opus 4.8 |
Anthropic-leading SWE-bench |
$20/mo Claude Pro |
GPT-5.5 |
|
Coding (cost-effective) |
Qwen 3.7 Max |
80.4 SWE-Verified, 1M context |
$1.25 / $3.75 promo through June 22; $2.50 / $7.50 list |
MiniMax M3 |
|
Research & briefings |
Gemini 3.1 Pro |
94.3% GPQA Diamond, Google grounding |
Google AI Pro / Ultra |
Claude Opus 4.8 |
|
Hard math, physics, finance modelling |
GPT-5.5 Pro |
39.6% FrontierMath Tier 4 |
$100/mo ChatGPT Pro |
Qwen 3.7 Max |
|
Always-on agent workflows |
Gemini Spark |
First 24/7 cloud agent |
$100/mo Google AI Ultra |
Claude Cowork |
|
Live news, X-context creative |
Grok 4.3 |
Native X grounding |
$30/mo SuperGrok |
Gemini 3.1 Pro |
|
All-in-one consolidation |
Fello AI |
ChatGPT + Claude + Gemini + Grok + DeepSeek |
$9.99/mo |
Pay each vendor separately |
Runner-up and alternatives: For most professional teams, Claude Opus 4.8 is the runner-up to GPT-5.5 for daily work and the leader for coding. Gemini 3.1 Pro is the runner-up for research-heavy roles, and Gemini Spark is the unique pick if you can put a cloud agent to work on long tasks.
The open-weight tier had its biggest shake-up of the year, and it is now genuinely crowded at the frontier. Ranked by Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, the strongest open models are MiniMax M3 at 55, Kimi K2.6 and Xiaomi’s MiMo-V2.5-Pro at 54, DeepSeek V4-Pro at 52, and GLM-5.1 at 51.4, with NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra at 48 as the most capable model under a fully permissive license. Licensing now matters as much as raw score: MiniMax M3’s terms were unconfirmed at launch, while Kimi K2.6 (Modified MIT), DeepSeek V4 (MIT), GLM-5.1 (MIT), and Nemotron 3 Ultra (OpenMDW) all clearly allow commercial use.
Open-weight models matter for three reasons: you can run them locally without a vendor, you can fine-tune them, and the price floor on closed-API models gets reset every time a strong open release ships. The gap to the closed frontier has narrowed sharply. DeepSeek V4-Pro leads open models on agentic real-world work at 1,554 GDPval-AA, Kimi K2.6 and GLM-5.1 both clear 58% on SWE-Bench Pro, and GLM-5.1 sustains 8-hour autonomous execution on long engineering tasks. For most production work that does not need the absolute peak of reasoning, an open model on a managed provider like Together AI, Fireworks, DeepInfra, or OpenRouter is the right call.
|
Model |
Best For |
Key Benchmark |
Context / License |
Where To Run |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
MiniMax M3 |
Highest open Intelligence Index |
II 55, 59% SWE-Bench Pro, multimodal |
1M / license TBD |
Hugging Face, API ~$0.60/1M |
|
Kimi K2.6 |
Strongest commercially-licensed open coder |
II 54, 58.6% SWE-Bench Pro, 1T/32B active |
256K / Modified MIT |
Hugging Face, DeepInfra, providers |
|
DeepSeek V4-Pro |
Agentic real-world work |
II 52, 1,554 GDPval-AA, 1.6T/49B active |
1M / MIT |
DeepSeek API ($0.435/$0.87), local |
|
GLM-5.1 |
Long-horizon agentic coding (8h runs) |
II 51.4, 58.4% SWE-Bench Pro, 95.3 AIME 2026 |
200K / MIT |
Z.ai, Hugging Face, OpenRouter |
|
NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra |
Most capable permissive-license open |
II 48, ~70% SWE-Verified, 550B/55B active |
1M / OpenMDW |
OpenRouter, Hugging Face, AWS (8× B200 self-host) |
|
DeepSeek V4-Flash |
Cheapest 1M-context open model |
II 47, $0.14/$0.28 per 1M, 284B/13B active |
1M / MIT |
DeepSeek API, local |
|
Qwen 3.5 (397B / 17B active) |
Multimodal, fast decode |
88.4 GPQA, 93.3 AIME 2026, 83.6 LiveCodeBench v6 |
1M / open |
Together, OpenRouter, local |
|
Qwen 3.5-9B |
Laptop-runnable open-weight |
81.7 GPQA Diamond |
Dense / open |
Local Mac/PC with 16GB+ RAM |
|
Llama 4 Maverick |
Meta-line flagship |
17B active / 400B total params |
Llama 4 license |
Meta cloud, Hugging Face, local |
|
NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano Omni |
Edge / low-power |
Multimodal, very small footprint |
Compact / open |
Local, NVIDIA tooling |
Runner-up and alternatives: Kimi K2.6 is the runner-up to MiniMax M3 and the best pick when you need a clearly commercial license. DeepSeek V4-Pro and GLM-5.1 are the runners-up for agentic coding, DeepSeek V4-Flash is the cheapest way to get a 1M-context open model, and NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano Omni remains the natural pick for edge and on-device use. Xiaomi’s MiMo-V2.5-Pro (Intelligence Index 54) is also worth tracking as a fast-rising new entrant.
Every ranking on this page combines three inputs: public benchmarks (Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, GPQA Diamond, ARC-AGI-2, Humanity’s Last Exam, SWE-bench Verified, GDPval-AA, FrontierMath, HMMT, Terminal-Bench, MCP Atlas, LM Arena), published API and subscription pricing from each vendor’s official pricing page, and hands-on use by the FelloAI editorial team running real prompts across the same task on every model. We re-fetch official pricing and benchmark sources before every monthly update.
Benchmarks are weighted to the use case: SWE-bench and Terminal-Bench drive coding, GPQA Diamond and ARC-AGI-2 drive accuracy, GDPval-AA (Artificial Analysis’s professional-deliverables benchmark) informs professional-task quality while writing style is judged primarily by hands-on testing, FrontierMath and HMMT drive problem-solving. We disclose when a benchmark is vendor-reported but not independently verified, and we strip any claim we cannot reproduce against a live source. When a model goes through a major upgrade between updates, we re-rank the category and add a “What changed this month” line at the bottom of the deep-dive.
It depends on the task. For daily chat and general assistance, GPT-5.5 Instant is ChatGPT’s default, with OpenAI reporting 52.5% fewer hallucinated claims than GPT-5.3 Instant. For coding, Claude Opus 4.8 holds the #1 Intelligence Index spot at 61 and leads SWE-bench, with Gemini 3.5 Flash as the price-performance pick and MiniMax M3 (June 1) as the new open-weight option. For writing style, Claude Sonnet 4.6 still leads on instruction-following. For accuracy and research, Gemini 3.1 Pro at 94.3% GPQA Diamond and 44.4% Humanity’s Last Exam. For hard math, Qwen 3.7 Max hit 97.1 HMMT 2026 February, with GPT-5.5 Pro leading FrontierMath Tier 4 at 39.6%. For images, ChatGPT Images 2.0 leads on text rendering and Reve 2.0 (June 3) is the new #2 on the Arena leaderboard. For agents, Gemini Spark is the first 24/7 cloud agent and Claude Cowork is the leader on desktop.
June opened with a wave of open-weight and challenger launches. NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra (June 4) is the most capable open model under a fully permissive license at 550 billion parameters and Intelligence Index 48. MiniMax M3 (June 1) shipped frontier coding, native multimodality, and a 1-million-token context at roughly $0.60 per million input tokens (it launched at a $0.30 promo). Microsoft entered the model race with its MAI family at Build (June 2), led by MAI-Code-1-Flash and MAI-Thinking-1. Reve 2.0 (June 3) launched at #2 on the Arena text-to-image leaderboard with native 4K. The biggest pending launch is Gemini 3.5 Pro, which Google says is in internal use and rolling out this month (specs not yet public). These follow late-May releases including Claude Opus 4.8 (#1 at 61), Qwen 3.7 Max, Gemini 3.5 Flash, and Gemini Spark.
MiniMax M3 (June 1) has the highest Intelligence Index of any open model at 55, though its license was unconfirmed at launch. For a clearly commercial license, Kimi K2.6 (Modified MIT) leads at Intelligence Index 54 and 58.6% SWE-Bench Pro, with DeepSeek V4-Pro (MIT, II 52) topping open models on agentic real-world work and GLM-5.1 (MIT, II 51.4) built for 8-hour autonomous coding runs. NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra (June 4, OpenMDW) is the most capable model under a fully permissive license at II 48, and DeepSeek V4-Flash is the cheapest 1M-context open model at $0.14 / $0.28 per million tokens.
Qwen 3.7 Max is Alibaba’s flagship API model, launched May 20, 2026 at the Alibaba Cloud Summit in Hangzhou. It scores Intelligence Index 57 on Artificial Analysis (top 10 globally, tied with Claude Opus 4.7, Gemini 3.1 Pro, and GPT-5.5 (medium)), 92.4 on GPQA Diamond, 97.1 on HMMT 2026 February, and 80.4 on SWE-Verified. List API pricing is $2.50 / $7.50 per 1M tokens (a 50% promotion through June 22, 2026 cuts it to $1.25 / $3.75) with a 1M-token context window, plus $0.25 cached input list price (reduced to $0.125 during the promotion, a 90% cache discount off list). Compared to GPT-5.5 at $5 / $30, Qwen 3.7 Max is half the input cost and a quarter of the output cost, but GPT-5.5 still leads on overall Intelligence Index (59-60) and on FrontierMath. For cost-sensitive agentic and long-context work where you want frontier-adjacent quality, Qwen 3.7 Max is the value pick.
The GPT-5.5 family launched April 23, 2026. The headline change is factual reliability: on a selected set of user-flagged conversations, OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5’s individual claims were 23% more likely to be factually correct than GPT-5.4’s, with full responses containing a factual error about 3% less often, plus faster response times across all tiers and a refreshed memory system. The consumer default is GPT-5.5 Instant (free with limits), and the gpt-5.5 API model runs $5 / $30 per 1M tokens. GPT-5.5 Pro is the higher-reasoning variant, available inside ChatGPT Pro at $100/month, and leads FrontierMath Tier 4 at 39.6%.
Not on every benchmark, but it is still the best default. GPT-5.5 leads everyday chat, factual reliability, and writing reports. Claude Opus 4.8 is the better pick for coding and long agentic tasks and holds #1 on the Intelligence Index at 61. Gemini 3.1 Pro is the better pick for accuracy and research. Gemini 3.5 Flash is the better pick for price-performance. Qwen 3.7 Max is the better pick for cost-effective frontier work. ChatGPT remains the most polished consumer product overall and the natural starting point if you only pay for one model.
Gemini Spark is Google’s first 24/7 cloud-resident AI agent, launched at Google I/O on May 19, 2026 and exclusive to the Google AI Ultra plan, which Google restructured at I/O to include a $100/month entry tier and a $200/month top tier. Spark is built on Gemini base models with Google’s Antigravity harness on a Google Cloud VM, integrates with Gmail, Google Docs, and other Google Workspace apps, and can interact with Chrome and Android’s Halo system on the device side. It is worth the spend for users who have repeatable long-running workflows (inbox triage, research roll-ups, scheduled tasks). For one-off tasks, Claude Cowork at $20/month covers most desktop-agent needs.
On API pricing per million tokens, Gemini 3.5 Flash at $1.50 / $9.00 is the cheapest closed frontier-class model (it beats Gemini 3.1 Pro on coding and agent benchmarks at ~40% lower cost). MiniMax M3 at around $0.60 per million input tokens (launch promo $0.30) is the cheapest open-weight frontier coder. Qwen 3.7 Max at $2.50 / $7.50 is the cheapest at the top Intelligence Index tier, and for an open-weight model with a 1M context, DeepSeek V4-Flash at $0.14 / $0.28 is the cheapest by an order of magnitude. Note that OpenAI applies higher long-context rates to GPT-5.5 for prompts over 272K input tokens ($10 / $45 for GPT-5.5, $60 / $270 for GPT-5.5 Pro).
ChatGPT Free runs GPT-5.5 with usage limits. Gemini Free runs Gemini 3.5 Flash in the Gemini app and Google AI Studio. Claude Free runs Claude Sonnet 4.6 with daily limits. DeepSeek Chat runs DeepSeek V4 free on the DeepSeek website. Grok has a limited free consumer plan (X Premium is a paid add-on). Qwen 3.5, NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra, MiniMax M3, Kimi K2.6, DeepSeek V4, and GLM-5.1 are open-weight and free to self-host. Qwen 3.7 Max is not free: it is API-only with no consumer chat front-end.
Claude Opus 4.8 is the best for coding overall and the favourite inside Cursor and Claude Code. GPT-5.5 is the proprietary alternative at 58.6% SWE-Bench Pro and 82.7% Terminal-Bench 2.0. Gemini 3.5 Flash is the price-performance pick at 76.2% Terminal-Bench 2.1 and $1.50 / $9.00 per 1M tokens. MiniMax M3 (June 1) is the new open-weight frontier pick at 59% SWE-Bench Pro and roughly $0.60 per million input tokens, and Microsoft’s MAI-Code-1-Flash (June 2) is the budget IDE pick, beating Claude Haiku 4.5 while using up to 60% fewer tokens. DeepSeek V4 (Pro and Flash, MIT, 1M context), Kimi K2.6, and GLM-5.1 are the open-weight coding picks, with V4-Flash the cheapest at $0.14 / $0.28 per million tokens.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the best for writing style and instruction-following at $3 / $15 per 1M tokens, with 1,643 Elo on GDPval-AA. GPT-5.5 is the alternative for fact-anchored business writing (improved factual reliability vs GPT-5.4 (OpenAI eval)). Gemini 3.5 Flash is the price-performance pick for bulk content at 1,656 GDPval-AA Elo and $1.50 / $9.00.
Gemini 3.1 Pro is the best for accuracy and research at 94.3% GPQA Diamond, 44.4% Humanity’s Last Exam, and 77.1% ARC-AGI-2, with native Google Search grounding for live factual answers. Qwen 3.7 Max is the value runner-up at 92.4 GPQA Diamond. GPT-5.5 Pro is the hallucination-sensitive runner-up. Gemini 3.5 Pro, expected later this month, could take the top spot when it ships.
ChatGPT Images 2.0 is the best for images with readable text, multilingual scripts, and infographic-style output. Google Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image) is the best for photoreal portraits and products. Reve 2.0 (June 3) is the new #2 on the Arena text-to-image leaderboard with native 4K and layout-based editing. Midjourney v8 is the best for stylized art, and Grok Imagine is the only frontier model that allows Spicy Mode adult content.
Google Veo 3.1 is the best for AI video after OpenAI retired the Sora 2 consumer app on April 26, 2026 (its API runs until September 24, 2026). Kling 3.5 is the runner-up for fast iteration, Runway Gen-4 is the runner-up for cinematic control.
GPT-5.5 Pro leads abstract math at 39.6% FrontierMath Tier 4, included in ChatGPT Pro at $100/month. Qwen 3.7 Max leads competition math at 97.1 HMMT 2026 February and 44.5 Apex, at half the cost on API. Claude Opus 4.8 is the alternative for long agentic reasoning, using adaptive thinking and an effort parameter.
Grok 4.3 is the best for unfiltered, opinionated, on-trend creativity with the fewest guardrails and native X grounding, at $30/month SuperGrok. Claude Opus 4.8 is the alternative for structured long-form creative work, Gemini 3.1 Pro is the alternative for multimodal creative.
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We update this page at least monthly and within 24-48 hours of any major model launch. The latest refresh was June 5, 2026, covering NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra (June 4), Reve 2.0 (June 3), Microsoft MAI models (June 2), and MiniMax M3 (June 1), plus the late-May launches of Claude Opus 4.8 (May 28), Qwen 3.7 Max (May 20), Gemini 3.5 Flash + Gemini Spark (May 19), ChatGPT Personal Finance (May 15), Codex Mobile (May 14), ERNIE 5.1 (May 8), and SubQ (May 5).
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