Compare leading AI models & Understand which is the best model for your needs. [Updated 29th of May]
May 2026 has already reshuffled the leaderboard twice. On May 28, Anthropic released its latest frontier model Opus 4.8, Google I/O 2026 dropped Gemini 3.5 Flash and Gemini Spark on May 19, Alibaba unveiled Qwen 3.7 Max on May 20, Klarna shipped a 100-million-product Shopping Search app inside ChatGPT the same day, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Personal Finance on May 15 and Codex Mobile on 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.
April set up the board: GPT-5.5 (April 23, 60% fewer hallucinations), Claude Opus 4.7 (April 16), Claude Cowork desktop agent GA (April 9), DeepSeek V4 Preview (April 24), Grok 4.3 (April 30), NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano Omni (April 28), and the official discontinuation of Sora 2 (April 26). 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 61.4, 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 the discontinuation of Sora 2, 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 Opus 4.8 and it immediately took the #1 spot on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index at 61.4, passing GPT-5.5 (60.2) 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. 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. 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.
Gemini 3.5 Flash is the first Flash-tier model to outscore its own previous flagship on coding and agent benchmarks. It hits 76.2% on Terminal-Bench 2.1, 83.6% on MCP Atlas, and 1,656 Elo on GDPval-AA (above Claude Sonnet 4.6 at 1,643, below GPT-5.4 at 1,671). Context is 1,048,576 input tokens with 64,000 max output, and pricing is $1.50 / $9.00 per 1M tokens, roughly 40% cheaper than Gemini 3.1 Pro at comparable coding quality. It does NOT overtake Gemini 3.1 Pro on the hardest reasoning tests (HLE 40.2% vs 44.4%, ARC-AGI-2 72.1% vs 77.1%), so Pro stays the accuracy pick. Read the full Gemini 3.5 Flash review.
Gemini Spark is Google’s first true 24/7 agentic assistant. It is built on Gemini base models with Google’s Antigravity agentic harness, running on a Google Cloud VM so tasks continue when your laptop is closed or your phone is locked. Spark integrates out of the box with Gmail, Google Docs, and other Google Workspace apps, and can interact with Chrome and Android’s Halo system on the device side. With explicit approval, Spark can take actions across third-party partners on the web. Spark is exclusive to the Google AI Ultra plan, which Google restructured at I/O to add a $100/month entry tier alongside the existing top tier at $200/month. Beta opened to trusted testers May 19; the Ultra rollout begins the week of May 26, 2026. Compare it to Anthropic’s desktop agent in our Gemini Spark vs Claude Cowork guide.
Klarna launched the Shopping Search app inside ChatGPT, the largest commerce integration ChatGPT has shipped. Users describe what they want to buy and see visual results with live prices, availability, and offers from multiple retailers without leaving the chat. It is powered by Klarna’s Product Search MCP server, connecting ChatGPT to 100 million+ products and 400 million merchant listings across 13 markets. After selection, ChatGPT redirects users to the merchant for checkout. Klarna cited 700% growth in AI-platform traffic to retail in the 2025 holiday season, with AI shoppers converting at a 31% higher rate.
ChatGPT Personal Finance launched in US-only preview for ChatGPT Pro subscribers. A Plaid integration connects 12,000+ financial institutions (Chase, Schwab, Fidelity, Robinhood, American Express, Capital One). Once connected, ChatGPT surfaces a dashboard of portfolio performance, spending, subscriptions, and upcoming payments. OpenAI cited 200 million users already asking ChatGPT financial questions monthly.
Codex Mobile brought OpenAI’s coding agent to iOS and Android in preview for every ChatGPT plan. You can monitor agent tasks, approve diffs, and redirect work from your phone. The launch puts OpenAI’s coding agent on the phone for the first time, alongside the existing desktop and CLI experiences.
Miami startup Subquadratic shipped SubQ, the first production LLM with a 12-million-token context window, roughly 12x larger than Gemini 3.1 Pro’s 1M window. SubQ is positioned for whole-codebase analysis, multi-book ingestion, and long-form legal review. Benchmarks are early but the context-window record is the headline.
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, scoring 1,643 Elo on GDPval-AA and sitting at the top of Anthropic’s lineup for natural prose. GPT-5.5 (April 23, 2026) lowered hallucinations by 60% versus GPT-5.4 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 natural-prose Elo within Anthropic line |
More cautious than GPT on opinions |
$3 / $15 |
|
GPT-5.5 |
Business writing, factual reports |
60% fewer hallucinations vs 5.4 |
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 |
$15 / $75 |
|
Grok 4.3 |
Casual, opinionated, X-style |
Native X grounding, fewer guardrails |
Not the natural pick for formal copy |
$3 / $15 |
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: Gemini 3.5 Flash (May 19) hit 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 ($30+ cheaper than GPT-5.5 on output). GPT-5.5 (April 23) still leads GDPval-AA overall and stays the default for structured knowledge work after dropping hallucinations by 60% versus 5.4. Sonnet 4.6 still leads on style.
The best AI for everyday chat and daily assistant work is GPT-5.5, 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. GPT-5.5 launched April 23, 2026 with a 60% drop in hallucinations versus GPT-5.4, faster response times across all tiers, and a refreshed memory system that makes it the most reliable default for general-purpose tasks. It is available inside ChatGPT (free, Plus at $20/month, Pro at $100/month or $200/month for the larger context tier), through the API 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 |
Everyday chat, default assistant |
60% fewer hallucinations vs 5.4 |
Less expressive than Sonnet 4.6 |
$20/mo Plus, $5 / $30 API |
|
Claude Opus 4.8 |
Thoughtful, nuanced answers |
Strong reasoning, pushes back well |
$75 output API is expensive |
$20/mo Pro, $15 / $75 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 stayed the default for chat after April’s launch, with no May 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 continues to hold the top LM Arena text slot around 1,502 Elo as votes accumulate.
The best AI for image generation is ChatGPT Images 2.0, with Google Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3.5 image stack) as the alternative for photorealism 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 stack (refreshed at I/O 2026 alongside Gemini 3.5 Flash) is the natural pick for photoreal portraits and product shots at Flash-tier API cost ($1.50 / $9.00 per 1M tokens for the model layer). Midjourney v8 stays the niche choice for distinctive style. Microsoft’s MAI-Image-2 (April 2) remains too new to rank.
|
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 3.5) |
Photoreal portraits, products |
Photorealism, $0.04 per image cap |
Style less distinctive |
Gemini Pro or AI Studio |
|
Midjourney v8 |
Stylized art, illustration |
Aesthetic baseline most artists like |
Weaker on text in image |
$10-$60/mo |
|
Grok Imagine |
NSFW / Spicy Mode |
Most permissive guardrails |
Smallest model behind |
$30/mo SuperGrok |
|
MAI-Image-2 |
Microsoft ecosystem |
Native in Copilot |
Too new to rank |
Included in Copilot |
Runner-up and alternatives: Nano Banana Pro is the runner-up overall and the leader for photoreal work; 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: Gemini 3.5 Flash (May 19) refreshed the Nano Banana Pro image stack with the same Nano-Banana-class quality at Flash speeds and 40% lower API cost. ChatGPT Images 2.0 still leads on text-in-image. MAI-Image-2 remains too new to rank.
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. Sora 2 was officially discontinued by OpenAI on April 26, 2026, so OpenAI no longer ranks in this 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 |
From $15/mo |
|
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 |
From $15/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 is officially gone.
What changed this month: Sora 2 officially ended on April 26, 2026 after OpenAI deprioritised video to focus on Codex and Personal Finance. Veo 3.1 is now uncontested at the top of the still-supported video models. Google is widely expected to refresh Veo at the next Google 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 new mid-tier value pick, and DeepSeek V4 as the open-weight 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 at 88.7% on SWE-bench Verified and ahead 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. Qwen 3.7 Max (May 20) hit 80.4 on SWE-Verified at $2.50 / $7.50 and $0.25 cached input, undercutting both Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5 on cost. DeepSeek V4 Preview (April 24) remains the strongest open-weight model at 80% plus SWE-bench and about 90% HumanEval, available locally on Mac with enough RAM.
|
Model |
Best For |
Strength |
Weakness |
Price (per 1M tokens) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Claude Opus 4.8 |
Long-running agentic coding |
Anthropic-leading SWE-bench, task budgets |
Most expensive |
$5 / $25 |
|
GPT-5.5 |
Frontier proprietary alternative |
88.7% SWE-bench Verified |
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 |
|
Qwen 3.7 Max |
Cost-effective mid-tier |
80.4 SWE-Verified, $0.25 cached input |
Closed weights, API-only |
$2.50 / $7.50 |
|
DeepSeek V4 Preview |
Open-weight, local runs |
80%+ SWE-bench, ~90% HumanEval |
Hardware-heavy for local |
$0.27 / $1.10 |
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; DeepSeek V4 is the runner-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: Gemini 3.5 Flash (May 19) made agent coding meaningfully cheaper at the frontier. Qwen 3.7 Max (May 20) joined the top tier with 80.4 SWE-Verified, undercutting Claude Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5 on price-per-quality. DeepSeek V4 Preview (April 24) stays the strongest open-weight option. The April-launched proprietary leaders (GPT-5.5 at 88.7% SWE-bench, Claude Opus 4.8 with Anthropic’s gains over 4.8) remain the picks when budget is not the constraint.
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 May 2026. Grok 4.3 stayed the category leader after April. Gemini 3.5 Flash (May 19) is too speed-tuned to be the natural creativity pick yet, but the cheaper image stack inside Gemini 3.5 helps multimodal creative workflows.
The best AI for accuracy and research is Gemini 3.1 Pro, with Qwen 3.7 Max as the new 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) keeps the 60% hallucination drop over GPT-5.4, 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 |
$2.50 / $7.50 |
|
GPT-5.5 Pro |
Hallucination-sensitive work |
60% fewer hallucinations vs 5.4 |
Pricier API tier |
$100/mo ChatGPT Pro |
|
Claude Opus 4.8 |
Long-form factual writing |
Top LM Arena text slot ~1,502 Elo |
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 new runner-up after May 20 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: Qwen 3.7 Max (May 20) joined the accuracy top tier at 92.4 GPQA Diamond. Gemini 3.5 Flash (May 19) did NOT overtake Pro on accuracy tests, so the live-page recommendation does not change at the top.
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 Thinking 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 4.8 Thinking (April 16) introduced task budgets, a new primitive for controlling agentic token spend on long chains. 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 |
$2.50 / $7.50 |
|
Claude Opus 4.8 Thinking |
Long agentic reasoning |
Task budgets, top LM Arena text |
Slower on math |
$5 / $15 |
|
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 Preview |
Open-weight problem solving |
Strong on AIME/HumanEval |
Hardware-heavy local |
$0.27 / $1.10 |
Runner-up and alternatives: Claude Opus 4.8 Thinking 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 Preview is the open-weight runner-up.
What changed this month: Qwen 3.7 Max (May 20) joined the front of the pack at 97.1 HMMT 2026 February and 44.5 Apex. GPT-5.5 Pro still leads FrontierMath Tier 4 at 39.6%. Reasoning depth remains Pro/Thinking territory; Flash-class models have not displaced it.
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 picks 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: Gemini Spark (May 19) is the launch that defines this category. Codex Mobile (May 14) made OpenAI’s coding agent phone-friendly. Claude Cowork stayed the desktop-agent default after its April GA, and the practical Spark-vs-Cowork choice now drives most agent decisions for individual users.
Here is the May 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 is DeepSeek V4 Preview at $0.27 / $1.10. For a deeper breakdown by tier, see our full AI Pricing Comparison Guide hub.
Model | Input (per 1M) | Output (per 1M) | Context Window | Free Tier? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
GPT-5.5 | $5.00 | $30.00 | 400K | Yes (ChatGPT Free) |
GPT-5.5 Pro | API not standalone | API not standalone | 400K | No, $100/mo ChatGPT Pro |
Claude Opus 4.8 | $5.00 | $25.00 | 1M | Yes (Claude Free) |
Claude Sonnet 4.6 | $3.00 | $15.00 | 1M | Yes (Claude Free) |
Gemini 3.1 Pro | $2.00 (≤200K) / $4.00 (>200K) | $12.00 (≤200K) / $18.00 (>200K) | 1M | Yes (Gemini app) |
Gemini 3.5 Flash | $1.50 | $9.00 | 1M | Yes (Gemini app + AI Studio) |
Qwen 3.7 Max | $2.50 ($0.25 cached, -90%) | $7.50 | 1M | No (API only) |
Qwen 3.5 (open-weight) | Self-host / Together | Self-host / Together | 1M | Yes (open weights) |
Grok 4.3 | $3.00 | $15.00 | 1M | Yes (X Premium) |
DeepSeek V4 Preview | $0.27 | $1.10 | 128K | Yes (DeepSeek chat) |
ERNIE 5.1 | China-region pricing | China-region pricing | 256K | Yes (Baidu) |
Gemini Spark (agent) | Not API-priced | Not API-priced | 1M (Gemini 3.5) | No, $100/mo Google AI Ultra |
Fello AI (aggregator) | Routed via app | Routed via app | Model-dependent | $9.99/mo |
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.
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.”
Update — May 2, 2026: Read our new Grok 4.3 review. ChatGPT now runs on GPT-5.5, launched on April 23, 2026, while Grok is powered by Grok 4.3 (released April 30, 2026) and the older Grok 4.20 from xAI. Both chatbots have evolved significantly over the past year, and picking
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 new value alternative at 97.1 HMMT 2026 February with API pricing at $2.50 / $7.50 (half the input cost of GPT-5.5).
Task | Best Model | Why | Free? | Alternative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Essays & coursework | GPT-5.5 | Free in ChatGPT, 60% fewer hallucinations | 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 | 60% fewer hallucinations vs 5.4 | $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 | $2.50 / $7.50 API | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
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 best open-weight models you can run today are DeepSeek V4 Preview for frontier-class coding, Qwen 3.5 for multimodal capability and 8-19x faster decoding, and Llama 4.1 Maverick for the strongest Meta-line release. Qwen 3.7 Max is not open-weight (Alibaba kept the May 20 release closed), so it does not belong in this list; its predecessor Qwen 3.5 stays the open-weight Qwen flagship. 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-weight release ships.
The open-weight frontier in May 2026 is roughly 6-9 months behind the closed frontier on the hardest benchmarks (GPQA Diamond, ARC-AGI-2, FrontierMath), but it is at parity or ahead on cost and within striking distance on coding (DeepSeek V4 at 80% plus SWE-bench, Qwen 3.5 at 83.6% LiveCodeBench v6). For most production use cases that do not need the absolute peak of reasoning, an open-weight model on a managed inference provider like Together AI or Fireworks is the right call.
Model | Best For | Key Benchmark | Architecture | Where To Run |
|---|---|---|---|---|
DeepSeek V4 Preview | Coding, frontier-class | 80%+ SWE-bench, ~90% HumanEval | MoE | DeepSeek API ($0.27/$1.10), Together, local |
Qwen 3.5 (397B / 17B active) | Multimodal, fast decode | 88.4 GPQA, 93.3 AIME 2026, 83.6 LiveCodeBench v6 | Hybrid Gated DeltaNet + MoE | Together, OpenRouter, local |
Qwen 3.5-9B | Laptop-runnable open-weight | 81.7 GPQA Diamond | Dense | Local Mac/PC with 16GB+ RAM |
Qwen 3.6-Plus | Strongest open-weight coding on Qwen line | Parity with Claude Opus 4.5 on SWE-bench | MoE | Together, OpenRouter |
Llama 4.1 Maverick | Meta-line flagship | Strong general reasoning | Dense + experts | Meta cloud, Hugging Face, local |
NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano Omni | Edge / low-power | Multimodal, very small footprint | Compact | Local, NVIDIA tooling |
Runner-up and alternatives: Qwen 3.6-Plus (April 2, 2026) is the open-weight runner-up on coding behind DeepSeek V4. NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Nano Omni (April 28) is the natural pick for edge and on-device use cases. Llama 4.1 Maverick is the runner-up Meta-line pick.
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 drives writing, 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 (April 23, 2026) leads with a 60% drop in hallucinations over GPT-5.4. For coding, Claude Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5 are neck and neck on SWE-bench, with Gemini 3.5 Flash (May 19) as the price-performance pick at $1.50 / $9.00 per 1M tokens. 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 (May 20) 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. For agents, Gemini Spark is the first 24/7 cloud agent and Claude Cowork is the leader on desktop.
Latest AI addition as of end of May is Claude Opus 4.8 with its impressive score on the Intelligence Index. Qwen 3.7 Max launched May 20 at the Alibaba Cloud Summit at Intelligence Index 56.6 and 97.1 HMMT 2026 February. Klarna shipped its Shopping Search app inside ChatGPT the same day with 100M+ products across 13 markets. Gemini 3.5 Flash and Gemini Spark both launched May 19 at Google I/O 2026; Flash beats Gemini 3.1 Pro on coding and agent benchmarks at 40% lower cost, and Spark becomes the first 24/7 cloud agent on the $100/month Google AI Ultra plan. ChatGPT Personal Finance launched May 15 for ChatGPT Pro (US-only Plaid integration with 12,000+ banks). Codex Mobile launched May 14 on iOS and Android. ERNIE 5.1 (Baidu) landed May 8 at #4 globally on LMArena Search Arena. SubQ (Subquadratic) launched May 5 with a 12-million-token context window.
Qwen 3.7 Max is Alibaba’s new 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 4.8, 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. API pricing is $2.50 / $7.50 per 1M tokens with a 1M-token context window, plus $0.25 cached input (a 90% cache discount). 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 new value pick.
GPT-5.5 launched April 23, 2026 as OpenAI’s new default ChatGPT model. The headline change is a 60% drop in hallucinations versus GPT-5.4, plus faster response times across all tiers and a refreshed memory system. API pricing is $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. 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 frontier-class model (it beats Gemini 3.1 Pro on coding and agent benchmarks at ~40% lower cost). Qwen 3.7 Max at $2.50 / $7.50 is the cheapest at the top Intelligence Index tier. For open-weight, DeepSeek V4 Preview at $0.27 / $1.10 is the cheapest by an order of magnitude.
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 is free with X Premium. Qwen 3.5 (open-weight) is 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 88.7% SWE-bench Verified. Gemini 3.5 Flash is the price-performance pick at 76.2% Terminal-Bench 2.1 and $1.50 / $9.00 per 1M tokens. Qwen 3.7 Max is the mid-tier value pick at 80.4 SWE-Verified and $2.50 / $7.50. DeepSeek V4 Preview is the open-weight pick at 80%+ SWE-bench and $0.27 / $1.10.
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 (60% fewer hallucinations vs 5.4). 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.
ChatGPT Images 2.0 is the best for images with readable text, multilingual scripts, and infographic-style output. Google Nano Banana Pro (refreshed with Gemini 3.5 on May 19) is the best for photoreal portraits and products. Midjourney v8 is the best for stylized art. Grok Imagine is the only frontier model that allows Spicy Mode adult content.
Google Veo 3.1 is the best for AI video after Sora 2 was officially discontinued by OpenAI on April 26, 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 Thinking is the alternative for long agentic reasoning with task budgets.
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.
Fello AI is an AI chatbot for Mac, iPhone, and iPad that lets you use all top AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, and DeepSeek in one app, with models updated regularly so you always have the latest. It is $9.99/month with a 4.7-star rating across 25,000+ reviews.
We update this page at least monthly and within 24-48 hours of any major model launch. The latest refresh was May 22, 2026, covering Qwen 3.7 Max (May 20), Gemini 3.5 Flash + Gemini Spark (May 19), Klarna Shopping Search in ChatGPT (May 20), ChatGPT Personal Finance (May 15), Codex Mobile (May 14), ERNIE 5.1 (May 8), and SubQ (May 5).
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