Tied with GPT-5.4 at the top of every leaderboard. Faster and cheaper. What's the catch?
Google's Gemini 3.1 Pro shares the #1 position on the Intelligence Index with GPT-5.4, both scoring 57.2. But Gemini runs 47% faster, costs 20% less, and scored 77.1% on ARC-AGI-2 — more than double its predecessor. On paper, it should be the default choice for everyone. In practice, there are nuances worth understanding.
Gemini 3.1 Pro's profile is exceptional. Same intelligence as GPT-5.4. Faster output. Lower price. The same pricing as its predecessor Gemini 3 Pro — a full generation upgrade at no extra cost.
The ARC-AGI-2 score of 77.1% is particularly impressive. This benchmark tests novel reasoning — the ability to solve problems the model hasn't seen patterns for. A high score here suggests genuine reasoning capability, not just pattern matching from training data.
For developers evaluating models purely on capability-per-dollar, Gemini 3.1 Pro is the rational choice. It matches or exceeds GPT-5.4 on almost every metric that matters while costing less.
The coding gap is real: 55.5 vs 57.3 on the Coding Index. For teams where coding is the primary use case, GPT-5.4 produces slightly better code more consistently. The difference is most noticeable on complex multi-file refactors and systems-level programming.
OpenAI's API ecosystem is also more mature for complex workflows. Function calling, structured outputs, assistants API, and tool use are more polished and better documented in OpenAI's stack. Google is catching up fast (computer use tools were just added to Gemini 3), but the developer experience gap exists today.
Gemini has traditionally led on context window size, and 3.1 Pro continues that with strong performance on long-context tasks. For applications processing entire codebases, long documents, or extensive conversation histories, Gemini's long-context handling remains excellent.
Google's native integration with Google Workspace (Docs, Sheets, Gmail) also means Gemini can access context that other models can't, though this is a product feature rather than a model capability.
At 113 tokens per second, Gemini 3.1 Pro is the fastest frontier model — significantly faster than GPT-5.4's 77 tok/s and more than double Claude Opus 4.6's 51 tok/s. For interactive applications, this speed advantage translates directly to better user experience.
The Gemini API supports multimodal input (text, image, audio, video) natively, which is increasingly important as AI applications move beyond pure text. If your application needs to process images or audio alongside text, Gemini handles it without separate model calls.
All data from Artificial Analysis. Intelligence and Coding indices, speed measurements (median P50), and pricing from standard API tiers. ARC-AGI-2 score from Google's published evaluation. Comparison tested both models on identical prompts across categories.
Yes, Gemini 3.1 Pro deserves the #1 spot — or at least a tie for it. Same intelligence as GPT-5.4, 20% cheaper, 47% faster, and exceptional on novel reasoning. The only reasons to choose GPT-5.4 over it are slightly better coding performance and a more mature API ecosystem. For most developers, Gemini 3.1 Pro is the best default model in 2026.
Published April 9, 2026. Data updated daily from independent benchmarks and API providers.