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. 28 models have a published score on this board.

Capability published 2026-10-23 · pricing retrieved 2026-10-25

Most capable
Claude Opus 5.5
Anthropic
$8.00 / 1M blended
100% of leader strength
anthropic/claude-opus-5.5
Best value
Claude Opus 5.5
Anthropic
$8.00 / 1M blended
100% of leader strength
anthropic/claude-opus-5.5
Budget
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Anthropic
$4.00 / 1M blended
67% of leader strength · 50% cheaper
anthropic/claude-sonnet-5.5
Best for agents
Claude Opus 5.5
Anthropic
$8.00 / 1M blended
100% of leader strength
anthropic/claude-opus-5.5

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 Opus 5.5
anthropic/claude-opus-5.5
Anthropic 0.2077 100% $8.001M tools
2 Claude Sonnet 5.5
anthropic/claude-sonnet-5.5
Anthropic 0.1399 67% $4.001M tools
3 GPT-6 Astra
openai/gpt-6-astra
OpenAI 0.1396 67% $20.001.05M tools
4 Claude Fable 5.1
anthropic/claude-fable-5.1
Anthropic 0.1394 67% $20.001M tools
5 GPT-6.1 Sol
openai/gpt-6.1-sol
OpenAI 0.1364 66% $4.001.05M tools
6 Gemini 4 Argon
google/gemini-4-argon
Google 0.1175 57% $4.001.048576M tools
7 GPT-6 Sol
openai/gpt-6-sol
OpenAI 0.0857 41% $4.001.05M tools
8 Claude Opus 5
anthropic/claude-opus-5
Anthropic 0.0822 40% $10.001M tools
9 Claude Fable 5
anthropic/claude-fable-5
Anthropic 0.0775 37% $20.001M tools
10 Claude Sonnet 5
anthropic/claude-sonnet-5
Anthropic 0.0375 18% $4.001M tools
11 Gemini 3.8 Flash
google/gemini-3.8-flash
Google 0.0317 15% $1.661.048576M tools
12 Grok 4.7
x-ai/grok-4.7
xAI 0.0302 15% $3.00500K tools
13 GPT-6 Luna
openai/gpt-6-luna
OpenAI 0.0279 13% $0.201.05M tools
14 DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
deepseek/deepseek-v4.1-flash
DeepSeek 0.0225 11% $0.271.048576M tools
15 GLM 5.2
z-ai/glm-5.2
Z.ai (Zhipu) 0.0169 8% $1.771.048576M tools
16 Kimi K3
moonshotai/kimi-k3
Moonshot AI 0.0157 8% $2.881.048576M tools
17 GLM 5.3
z-ai/glm-5.3
Z.ai (Zhipu) 0.0122 6% $0.411.048576M tools
18 Claude Haiku 5.5
anthropic/claude-haiku-5.5
Anthropic 0.0114 5% $0.201M tools
19 Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
qwen/qwen3.8-max-0902
Qwen (Alibaba) 0.0113 5% $3.001M tools
20 Grok 4.6
x-ai/grok-4.6
xAI 0.0063 3% $3.00500K tools
21 DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813
deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro-0813
DeepSeek -0.0027 -1% $0.991.048576M tools
22 DeepSeek V4 Pro 0423
deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro
DeepSeek -0.0027 -1% $0.261.048576M tools
23 Gemini 3.7 Flash
google/gemini-3.7-flash
Google -0.0127 -6% $1.501.048576M tools
24 GLM 5.3 Flash
z-ai/glm-5.3-flash
Z.ai (Zhipu) -0.0177 -9% $0.241.048576M tools
25 Qwen3.8 27B
qwen/qwen3.8-27b
Qwen (Alibaba) -0.0410 -20% $0.781M tools

Capability: Arena leaderboard dataset (CC-BY-4.0), Arena agent, published 2026-10-23. Pricing: OpenRouter, retrieved 2026-10-25. (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.

Get this as JSON

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

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