🏆Editorial Picks • January 2026

Top 3 AI Models
January 2026 Expert Picks

Not just benchmarks. Not just vibes. Our monthly picks combine hard data with real-world experienceto recommend the AI models that actually deliver.

TL;DR: This Month's Winners

🥇

Claude Opus 4.5

Best overall reasoning & writing

Quality: 63 • $6/M tokens

🥈

GLM-4.7 Thinking

Best open source model

Quality: 59 • Free to self-host

🥉

Gemini 3 Pro

Best for speed & multimodal

Quality: 62 • $1.25/M tokens

🥇
Pick #1 • Best Overall

Claude Opus 4.5

by Anthropic

63

Quality Index

$6.00

Per M tokens

1M

Context window

89%

LiveCodeBench

Why We Picked It

Claude Opus 4.5 isn't just the best at benchmarks—it feels different to use. There's a thoughtfulness to its responses that other models lack. It doesn't just answer; it considers. When you're working on complex problems, that difference compounds.

The 1 million token context window means you can feed it entire codebases, full documentation sets, or months of conversation history. And unlike some models that degrade with context, Claude maintains quality throughout.

The Vibes

  • ✅ Writing quality: Best-in-class prose. Natural, not robotic.
  • ✅ Code reviews: Catches subtle bugs other models miss
  • ✅ Long-form reasoning: Can sustain complex arguments across thousands of words
  • ✅ Honesty: Admits uncertainty rather than hallucinating
  • ⚠️ Speed: Not the fastest. You're trading speed for quality.
  • ⚠️ Price: Premium pricing ($6/M) makes it expensive for high-volume use

Best For

Complex reasoning tasks, professional writing, code architecture decisions, research assistance, and anything where quality matters more than cost or speed.

Compare Claude Opus 4.5 →
🥈
Pick #2 • Best Open Source

GLM-4.7 Thinking

by Z.AI (Zhipu AI)

59

Quality Index

Free

Self-hosted

131K

Context window

90.6%

Tool Use

Why We Picked It

GLM-4.7 Thinking is the model that made us reconsider what "open source" means in 2026. It's not just "pretty good for open source"—it's genuinely competitive with the best proprietary models, and you can run it on your own hardware.

The "Thinking" variant adds a hybrid reasoning mode where the model can switch between fast responses and deliberate chain-of-thought reasoning. This makes it exceptional for agentic use cases where you need both speed and accuracy.

The Vibes

  • ✅ Actually open: MIT license. Run it anywhere, fine-tune it, no restrictions.
  • ✅ Agentic excellence: 90.6% tool use success rate rivals Claude
  • ✅ Hybrid reasoning: Thinking mode for complex tasks, fast mode for simple ones
  • ✅ Self-hosting: Full control over your data. No API calls leaving your infrastructure.
  • ⚠️ Setup complexity: Requires ML infrastructure to run efficiently
  • ⚠️ Chinese-first training: Sometimes better at Chinese than English edge cases

Best For

Privacy-conscious deployments, self-hosted AI agents, cost-sensitive production workloads, and anyone who wants frontier-level AI without vendor lock-in.

Compare GLM-4.7 →View on HuggingFace ↗
🥉
Pick #3 • Best for Speed & Multimodal

Gemini 3 Pro

by Google DeepMind

62

Quality Index

$1.25

Per M tokens

2M

Context window

180

Tokens/sec

Why We Picked It

Gemini 3 Pro hits the sweet spot that most users actually need: near-frontier quality at reasonable prices with excellent speed. It's Google finally delivering on the multimodal promise—you can throw images, videos, and audio at it alongside text.

The 2 million token context window is legitimately useful (not just a marketing number). Combined with 180 tokens/second generation speed, it's the model that makes you forget you're waiting for AI.

The Vibes

  • ✅ Speed: Fast enough for real-time applications. 180 tok/s beats most competitors.
  • ✅ Multimodal: Native image, video, and audio understanding. Not just an afterthought.
  • ✅ Value: $1.25/M tokens makes it 5x cheaper than Claude Opus with 90%+ quality
  • ✅ Context: 2M tokens means entire codebases, full document sets, video transcripts
  • ⚠️ Google ecosystem: Best experience is within Google Cloud / Vertex AI
  • ⚠️ Creative writing: Less "personality" than Claude—more utilitarian

Best For

Real-time applications, multimodal tasks (image analysis, video understanding), cost-conscious teams who need near-frontier quality, and anyone processing massive documents or codebases.

Compare Gemini 3 Pro →

🌟Honorable Mentions

GPT-5.2 (xhigh)

Still the benchmark king at quality 70. If you need the absolute best and cost is no object, GPT-5.2 delivers. Just expect to pay for it.

Quality: 70 • $3.44/M tokens

DeepSeek V3.2

The price/performance champion. Quality 57 at $0.35/M tokens is absurd value. Perfect for high-volume workloads where you need "good enough."

Quality: 57 • $0.35/M tokens • Open Source

o3

OpenAI's reasoning specialist. When you need to solve competition math or PhD-level problems, o3's deliberative thinking mode is unmatched.

Quality: 65 • Reasoning specialist

Qwen3-235B

Alibaba's flagship continues to impress. Quality 57 at $0.25/M makes it the most cost-effective frontier-class model available.

Quality: 57 • $0.25/M tokens • Open Source

Quick Decision Guide

If you need...Use thisWhy
Best overall qualityClaude Opus 4.5Unmatched reasoning and writing quality
Self-hosting / privacyGLM-4.7 ThinkingMIT license, near-frontier quality
Speed + multimodalGemini 3 Pro180 tok/s, native image/video support
Maximum quality at any costGPT-5.2 (xhigh)Quality 70, highest on all benchmarks
Budget-conscious / high volumeDeepSeek V3.2 or Qwen3$0.25-0.35/M with quality 57
Competition-level reasoningo3Deliberative thinking for hard problems

Compare All Models Side-by-Side

Use our interactive comparison tool to explore pricing, latency, and benchmark scores for all 100+ models in our database.

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More Model Rankings

💻

Coding

Best for development

🧮

Math

Best for reasoning

🤖

Agentic

Best for agents

🔓

Open Source

Best self-hostable