The smartest AI models ranked by benchmark performance, with clear recommendations
The intelligence score is the single number that tells you how good an AI model is at thinking. It's a composite of MMLU-Pro (broad knowledge), GPQA (graduate-level reasoning), and other academic benchmarks, scaled to 0-100. It's imperfect -- no single number captures everything -- but it's the best proxy we have for general-purpose capability.
What's striking about the 2026 rankings is the three-way tie at the top. Google's Gemini 3.1 Pro, OpenAI's GPT-5.4, and GPT-5 all score 57.2 on intelligence. The differences between them are in pricing, speed, and context -- not in raw smarts.
Below the top tier, things get more interesting. The gap between 57 and 50 represents a genuine quality difference that users can feel: more accurate reasoning, fewer hallucinations, and better handling of ambiguous prompts.
The intelligence score aggregates performance across multiple standardized tests. MMLU-Pro tests broad knowledge across 57 subjects at college and professional level. GPQA presents questions written by PhD experts that require genuine reasoning. Other evaluations test mathematical reasoning, coding ability, and logical inference.
The composite score gives you a reliable prediction of how well a model will perform on novel tasks you haven't specifically tested it for. A model scoring 57 will handle your weird edge case prompts better than one scoring 45, almost every time.
What it doesn't measure: creativity, tone, personality, instruction following, safety, and domain-specific expertise. Two models with identical intelligence scores can feel very different to use.
Only three model families currently break the 55-point barrier, and they all sit at exactly 57.2:
Gemini 3.1 Pro from Google offers the best combination of intelligence and speed. At 117 tok/s with a 1M context window, it's the most practical choice for heavy lifting. Price: $2.00/1M.
GPT-5.4 from OpenAI matches Gemini on intelligence and slightly edges it on coding (57.3 vs 55.5). The 1.05M context window is the largest among top models. Price: $2.50/1M.
GPT-5 is functionally identical to GPT-5.4 in intelligence and coding, but with a 400K context window at $1.25/1M. For most tasks, this is the clear winner.
GPT-5.2-Codex rounds out OpenAI's offerings at 54.0 intelligence. It's optimized for code but performs well on general tasks too, at $1.75/1M.
Claude Opus 4 scores 53.0, placing it solidly in the top tier -- but at $15/1M, it's 12x the price of GPT-5. Anthropic's premium comes with arguably the best instruction following in the industry and a distinct writing style that many users prefer.
Claude Sonnet 4 at 51.7 is the sweet spot of the Claude lineup. Nearly as smart as Opus at a fifth of the price ($3.00/1M). For most professional use cases, Sonnet is the Anthropic model to use.
GPT-5.2 at 51.3 is interesting because it scores 99.0 on math benchmarks -- the highest of any model we track. If mathematical reasoning is your primary use case, this is the model.
The MiniMax M2 at 49.6 intelligence for just $0.26/1M is an extraordinary value. It won't match the top tier on the hardest problems, but for the vast majority of tasks, the difference is invisible. It's 5x cheaper than GPT-5.
Grok 4 from xAI enters at 48.5 with a unique advantage: a 2M token context window. No other model comes close. If you need to process book-length documents or entire codebases, Grok 4 is the only option.
The top models compared across intelligence, coding, speed, and price.
| Model | Intelligence | Coding | Speed | Price/1M In | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini 3.1 Pro | 57.2 | 55.5 | 117 tok/s | $2.00 | 1M |
| GPT-5.4 | 57.2 | 57.3 | 77 tok/s | $2.50 | 1.05M |
| GPT-5 | 57.2 | 57.3 | 77 tok/s |
Choose Gemini 3.1 Pro if: you need top-tier intelligence with the fastest response times and a 1M context window. It's the best all-rounder.
Choose GPT-5 if: you want the same intelligence as Gemini at a lower price and don't need more than 400K context. Best bang for your buck at the top.
Choose Claude Sonnet 4 if: you value instruction following and writing quality over raw benchmark scores. Claude models produce distinctly more natural-sounding text.
Choose MiniMax M2 if: you need a capable model on a budget. At $0.26/1M, you can run 50x more requests than GPT-5.4 for the same cost.
Choose Grok 4 if: you need to process extremely long documents. Its 2M context is unmatched.
Choose GPT-5.2 if: math is your primary use case. No other model matches its 99.0 math score.
Not everyone needs frontier intelligence. For many applications -- summarization, simple Q&A, basic analysis, content generation -- models in the 45-50 range are perfectly adequate and dramatically cheaper.
Qwen3.5 397B at 45.0 intelligence for $0.39/1M is the standout value pick. Kimi K2 at 46.8 for $0.55/1M offers slightly better performance. Both support 250K+ context windows.
The honest truth: for 80% of typical LLM tasks, a $0.39/1M model produces output that's indistinguishable from a $2.50/1M model. The top tier matters for the hardest 20% -- complex reasoning, subtle analysis, and tasks where accuracy is critical.
Intelligence scores are composites of MMLU-Pro, GPQA, and other standardized academic benchmarks. Speed measurements reflect median output throughput. Pricing reflects current API provider rates as of March 2026. All data is updated daily.
GPT-5 at $1.25/1M is the best overall pick for 2026: top-tier intelligence at a reasonable price with a generous 400K context window. Gemini 3.1 Pro is the upgrade pick if you need speed or 1M context. And MiniMax M2 at $0.26/1M is the sleeper hit that delivers 87% of frontier performance at 10% of the cost.
Published March 28, 2026. Data updated daily from independent benchmarks and API providers.
| $1.25 |
| 400K |
| GPT-5.2-Codex | 54.0 | 53.1 | 68 tok/s | $1.75 | 400K |
| Claude Opus 4 | 53.0 | 48.1 | 48 tok/s | $15.00 | 200K |
| Claude Sonnet 4 | 51.7 | 50.9 | 65 tok/s | $3.00 | 200K |
| GPT-5.2 | 51.3 | 48.7 | 69 tok/s | $1.75 | 400K |
| MiniMax M2 | 49.6 | 41.9 | 44 tok/s | $0.26 | 197K |
| Grok 4 | 48.5 | 42.2 | 124 tok/s | $3.00 | 256K |
| Gemini 3 Pro | 48.4 | 46.5 | 116 tok/s | $2.00 | 1M |