Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.
GPT-5.2 Instant is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 85 to 56. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
GPT-5.2 Instant's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 75.5 against 32.2. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SWE-bench Verified, 75 to 20.
GPT-4o is also the more expensive model on tokens at $2.50 input / $10.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $1.50 input / $6.00 output per 1M tokens for GPT-5.2 Instant. GPT-5.2 Instant is the reasoning model in the pair, while GPT-4o 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.
Pick GPT-5.2 Instant if you want the stronger benchmark profile. GPT-4o only becomes the better choice if you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.
GPT-5.2 Instant
79.6
GPT-4o
51.2
GPT-5.2 Instant
75.5
GPT-4o
32.2
GPT-5.2 Instant
93.1
GPT-4o
72.2
GPT-5.2 Instant
90.9
GPT-4o
64.6
GPT-5.2 Instant
79.8
GPT-4o
47.4
GPT-5.2 Instant
95
GPT-4o
82
GPT-5.2 Instant
94.4
GPT-4o
75.5
GPT-5.2 Instant
97.2
GPT-4o
71.8
GPT-5.2 Instant is ahead overall, 85 to 56. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Verified, where the scores are 75 and 20.
GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.8 versus 47.4. Inside this category, HLE is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 75.5 versus 32.2. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 97.2 versus 71.8. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 90.9 versus 64.6. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.6 versus 51.2. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 93.1 versus 72.2. Inside this category, OfficeQA Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 95 versus 82. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 94.4 versus 75.5. Inside this category, MMLU-ProX is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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