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Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs MAI-Thinking-1

Head-to-head comparison across 2benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

40

VS

MAI-Thinking-1

65

0 categoriesvs2 categories

Verified leaderboard positions: Claude 3.5 Sonnet unranked · MAI-Thinking-1 #23

Pick MAI-Thinking-1 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Claude 3.5 Sonnet only becomes the better choice if you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.

Category Radar

Head-to-Head by Category

Category Breakdown

Coding

MAI-Thinking-1
49vs71

+22.0 difference

Knowledge

MAI-Thinking-1
59.4vs69.9

+10.5 difference

Operational Comparison

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

MAI-Thinking-1

Price (per 1M tokens)

$3 / $15

N/A

Speed

N/A

N/A

Latency (TTFT)

N/A

N/A

Context Window

200K

256K

Quick Verdict

Pick MAI-Thinking-1 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Claude 3.5 Sonnet only becomes the better choice if you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.

MAI-Thinking-1 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 65 to 40. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

MAI-Thinking-1's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 71 against 49. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is GPQA, 59.4% to 84.2%.

MAI-Thinking-1 is the reasoning model in the pair, while Claude 3.5 Sonnet is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use. MAI-Thinking-1 gives you the larger context window at 256K, compared with 200K for Claude 3.5 Sonnet.

Benchmark Deep Dive

Frequently Asked Questions (3)

Which is better, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or MAI-Thinking-1?

MAI-Thinking-1 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 65 to 40. The biggest single separator in this matchup is GPQA, where the scores are 59.4% and 84.2%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or MAI-Thinking-1?

MAI-Thinking-1 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 69.9 versus 59.4. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or MAI-Thinking-1?

MAI-Thinking-1 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 71 versus 49. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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Last updated: June 8, 2026

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