Our Top AI Model -- April 2026
Our top AI model for April 2026 is Claude Opus 4.7 for its state-of-the-art software engineering, improved instruction following, and higher-resolution vision -- all at the same price as Opus 4.6. GPT-5.4 remains the best choice for multimodal work, and Gemini 3.1 Pro leads on long-context tasks.
The Picks
- #1
Claude Opus 4.7
Best overallAnthropic's April 16, 2026 release. Notable gains on the hardest software engineering tasks, state-of-the-art on the Finance Agent and GDPval-AA evaluations, vision up to 2,576 pixels on the long edge, and a new xhigh effort level for finer reasoning control. Same price as Opus 4.6.
- #2
GPT-5.4
Best multimodalStrong vision, audio, and text capabilities in a single model. The go-to choice when you need to process images, voice, or mixed media alongside text.
- #3
Gemini 3.1 Pro
Best long contextHandles massive documents and codebases with multi-million-token windows. Ideal for tasks that require ingesting and reasoning over entire repositories or long documents.
- #4
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Best valueMost of Opus's quality at a fraction of the cost and latency. The smart choice for high-volume tasks where speed and cost matter more than peak capability.
- #5
DeepSeek R1
Best open-weightCompetitive reasoning at lower cost, fully open. The leading option for teams that need to self-host or want complete transparency into model weights.
How They Compare
| Model | Provider | Best For | Context Window | Pricing Tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 4.7 | Anthropic | Overall reasoning and code | 1M tokens (Max+) | Premium |
| GPT-5.4 | OpenAI | Multimodal tasks | 128K tokens | Standard |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro | Long-context processing | 1M+ tokens | Standard | |
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Anthropic | Value and speed | 1M tokens (Max+) | Mid-tier |
| DeepSeek R1 | DeepSeek | Open-weight reasoning | 128K tokens | Budget |
Changelog
- April 2026: Claude Opus 4.7 promoted to top model on its April 16 launch. Notable gains on the hardest software engineering tasks, state-of-the-art on Finance Agent and GDPval-AA, plus higher-resolution vision (2,576 pixels on the long edge) and a new xhigh effort level. Pricing unchanged from Opus 4.6 at $5/M input and $25/M output. GPT-5.4 and Gemini 3.1 Pro updated to current versions.
- March 2026: Initial picks published. Claude Opus 4.6 selected as top model.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why Claude Opus 4.7 over Opus 4.6?
Opus 4.7 ships notable gains on the hardest software engineering tasks, better instruction following, vision up to 2,576 pixels on the long edge, and a new xhigh effort level. Pricing is unchanged at $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens, so the upgrade is essentially free.
How often does the top model change?
We re-evaluate whenever a major model release happens. Historically this has been every 2-3 months.