Head-to-head comparison across 3benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.
Claude Opus 4.8
95
MAI-Thinking-1
65
Verified leaderboard positions: Claude Opus 4.8 #4 · MAI-Thinking-1 #23
Pick Claude Opus 4.8 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. MAI-Thinking-1 only becomes the better choice if its workflow or ecosystem matters more than the raw scoreboard.
Agentic
+34.1 difference
Coding
+5.4 difference
Knowledge
+0.2 difference
Claude Opus 4.8
MAI-Thinking-1
$5 / $25
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
1M
256K
Pick Claude Opus 4.8 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. MAI-Thinking-1 only becomes the better choice if its workflow or ecosystem matters more than the raw scoreboard.
Claude Opus 4.8 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 95 to 65. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Claude Opus 4.8's sharpest advantage is in agentic, where it averages 80.1 against 46. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is Terminal-Bench 2.0, 74.6% to 46%.
Claude Opus 4.8 gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 256K for MAI-Thinking-1.
Claude Opus 4.8 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 95 to 65. The biggest single separator in this matchup is Terminal-Bench 2.0, where the scores are 74.6% and 46%.
Claude Opus 4.8 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 70.1 versus 69.9. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Claude Opus 4.8 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 76.4 versus 71. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Claude Opus 4.8 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 80.1 versus 46. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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