Best AI model for autonomous agent work

Multi-step tool-using tasks judged by humans on real agentic sessions — the closest signal to "will this model run my agent well". Ranked by Arena agent, priced against live API rates. 29 models have a published score on this board.

Capability published 2026-09-08 · pricing retrieved 2026-09-10

Most capable
Claude Fable 5.1
Anthropic
$20.00 / 1M blended
100% of leader strength
anthropic/claude-fable-5.1
Best value
Claude Fable 5.1
Anthropic
$20.00 / 1M blended
100% of leader strength
anthropic/claude-fable-5.1
Budget
Claude Opus 5
Anthropic
$10.00 / 1M blended
79% of leader strength · 50% cheaper
anthropic/claude-opus-5
Best for agents
Claude Fable 5.1
Anthropic
$20.00 / 1M blended
100% of leader strength
anthropic/claude-fable-5.1

Top 25 models for autonomous agent work

Rows marked frontier are Pareto-optimal — nothing we track is both stronger and cheaper. "Strength" rescales the board so 100% = parity with the leader.

#ModelProviderScoreStrength$/1MContextTools
1 Claude Fable 5.1
anthropic/claude-fable-5.1
Anthropic 0.1451 100% $20.001M tools
2 GPT-6 Astra
openai/gpt-6-astra
OpenAI 0.1255 86% $20.001.05M tools
3 Claude Opus 5
anthropic/claude-opus-5
Anthropic 0.1142 79% $10.001M tools
4 Claude Fable 5
anthropic/claude-fable-5
Anthropic 0.0915 63% $20.001M tools
5 GPT-5.6 Sol
openai/gpt-5.6-sol
OpenAI 0.0775 53% $4.001.05M tools
6 Claude Opus 4.8
anthropic/claude-opus-4.8
Anthropic 0.0769 53% $10.001M tools
7 Kimi K3
moonshotai/kimi-k3
Moonshot AI 0.0659 45% $6.001.048576M tools
8 Claude Sonnet 5
anthropic/claude-sonnet-5
Anthropic 0.0631 43% $4.001M tools
9 GLM 5.2
z-ai/glm-5.2
Z.ai (Zhipu) 0.0464 32% $1.491.048576M tools
10 DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813
deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro-0813
DeepSeek 0.0443 31% $1.571.048576M tools
11 DeepSeek V4 Pro 0423
deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro
DeepSeek 0.0443 31% $1.201.048576M tools
12 Gemini 3.8 Flash
google/gemini-3.8-flash
Google 0.0401 28% $1.501.048576M tools
13 Grok 4.5
x-ai/grok-4.5
xAI 0.0393 27% $3.00500K tools
14 Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
qwen/qwen3.8-max-0902
Qwen (Alibaba) 0.0390 27% $3.001M tools
15 Grok 4.6
x-ai/grok-4.6
xAI 0.0324 22% $3.00500K tools
16 GLM 5.3
z-ai/glm-5.3
Z.ai (Zhipu) 0.0256 18% $2.151.31072M tools
17 DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731
deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash-0731
DeepSeek 0.0222 15% $0.101.31072M tools
18 DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423
deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash
DeepSeek 0.0222 15% $0.111.048576M tools
19 GLM 5.3 Flash
z-ai/glm-5.3-flash
Z.ai (Zhipu) 0.0200 14% $0.241.31072M tools
20 GPT-5.6 Terra
openai/gpt-5.6-terra
OpenAI 0.0147 10% $4.501.05M tools
21 GPT-5.6 Luna
openai/gpt-5.6-luna
OpenAI 0.0111 8% $0.451.05M tools
22 Claude Sonnet 4.6
anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6
Anthropic -0.0105 -7% $6.001M tools
23 Qwen3.7 Max
qwen/qwen3.7-max
Qwen (Alibaba) -0.0309 -21% $2.211M tools
24 Qwen3.7 Plus
qwen/qwen3.7-plus
Qwen (Alibaba) -0.0520 -36% $0.561M tools
25 MiniMax M3
minimax/minimax-m3
MiniMax -0.0526 -36% $0.531.048576M tools

Capability: Arena leaderboard dataset (CC-BY-4.0), Arena agent, published 2026-09-08. Pricing: OpenRouter, retrieved 2026-09-10. (input x 3 + output x 1) / 4.

What this measures: Human pairwise preference votes. Measures perceived answer quality on this category, not correctness on a fixed test set. For each model this is its score as a share of the board leader's score — 1.0 means parity.

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curl -s https://agentleaderboards.com/api/v1/route/agentic.json | jq .picks

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