What model routing means for AI teams
What model routing means for AI teams. A short analysis built from the index, with the model-level data behind the claim.
Why model routing matters for teams
Teams rarely fail because they picked the wrong model on a benchmark. They fail because the model, the prompt, the retrieval layer and the cost model were never evaluated together. Model Routing is one of the places where those assumptions meet.
The useful move is to make the decision explicit: what quality bar, what budget, what latency and what fallback. Without those four numbers, every model looks plausible.
What to measure
- Quality on a fixed set of representative examples.
- Cost per successful task, including retries.
- Latency at the 50th and 95th percentile.
- Failure rate and how often a fallback is needed.
A practical checklist
Start with GPT-5.2 Pro as the quality candidate and GPT-5.1 Reasoning as the value candidate. Run both on the same examples and compare the cost of a correct answer, not the cost of a token.
Models relevant to model routing
| Model | Provider | Input / 1M | Context | Avg score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-5.2 Pro | OpenAI | $21.32 | 2,000,000 | 89.6 |
| GPT-5.2 Max | OpenAI | $21.39 | 1,000,000 | 89.2 |
| Claude Opus 4.5 Pro | Anthropic | $20.98 | 200,000 | 89.1 |
| GPT-5.1 Reasoning | OpenAI | $20.27 | 400,000 | 88.3 |
| Claude Opus 4.5 Reasoning | Anthropic | $20.91 | 2,000,000 | 88.2 |
Related
FAQ
What is the main takeaway of this model routing analysis?
Teams rarely fail because they picked the wrong model on a benchmark. They fail because the model, the prompt, the retrieval layer and the cost model were never evaluated together. Model Routing is one of the places where those assumptions meet.
Are the figures official?
No. The figures come from the AI & LLM Index demo dataset. Prices and scores are compiled for comparison; benchmark values are modelled estimates.
How should I use this in a buying decision?
Use it to build a shortlist, then test the shortlist on your own examples. Check the model pages for current price and context details.