# Gemma 4 12B vs MAI-Thinking-1

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Gemma 4 12B and MAI-Thinking-1 across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/gemma-4-12b-vs-mai-thinking-1
- Last updated: September 29, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 5
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.7

## Quick Verdict

Pick MAI-Thinking-1 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Gemma 4 12B only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- MAI-Thinking-1 leads overall 51 to 28.32.
- The clearest category separation is in mathematics, where the averages are 53 for Gemma 4 12B and 72.8 for MAI-Thinking-1.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is AIME26 in Mathematics, with scores of 77.5% and 94.5%.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Gemma 4 12B | MAI-Thinking-1 |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Google | Microsoft |
| Type | Open Weight | Proprietary |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 256K | 256K |
| Overall Score | 28.32 | null |
| Benchmarks Covered | 12 | 14 |
| Pricing (input/output) | N/A | N/A |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Not comparable
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: Coming soon
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | MAI-Thinking-1 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | Coming soon | 46% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Not comparable
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 21.7 (Estimated · #118/143)
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | MAI-Thinking-1 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 72.0% | 87.7% | MAI-Thinking-1 |
| SWE-bench Verified | Coming soon | 73.5% | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Pro | Coming soon | 52.8% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | Coming soon | 46.0% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 34.9 (Unranked · 4 rankable rows)
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | MAI-Thinking-1 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| BBH | 53% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MRCRv2 | 43.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Graphwalks BFS 128K | Coming soon | 90% | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Not comparable
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 27.2 (#46/50)
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | MAI-Thinking-1 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MMMU-Pro | 69.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MathVision | 79.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MedXpertQA (MM) | 48.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Not comparable
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 31.2 (Supported · #135/169)
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | MAI-Thinking-1 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 78.8% | 84.2% | MAI-Thinking-1 |
| GPQA-D | 78.8% | 84.2% | MAI-Thinking-1 |
| MMLU-Pro | 77.2% | 85% | MAI-Thinking-1 |
| HLE w/o tools | 5.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMMLU | 83.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SimpleQA | Coming soon | 31% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Directional only
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 88.7 (#22/124)
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: 95.4 (#1/124)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | MAI-Thinking-1 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | Coming soon | 85% | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 53 (Unranked · 1 rankable row)
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: 72.8 (Unranked · 3 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | MAI-Thinking-1 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME26 | 77.5% | 94.5% | MAI-Thinking-1 |
| AIME 2025 | Coming soon | 97% | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2026 | Coming soon | 84.9% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Gemma 4 12B or MAI-Thinking-1?

MAI-Thinking-1 is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between Gemma 4 12B and MAI-Thinking-1?

The widest category gap is in mathematics, where the averages are 53 for Gemma 4 12B and 72.8 for MAI-Thinking-1.

### How many benchmarks does Gemma 4 12B cover on BenchLM?

Gemma 4 12B currently has 12 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does MAI-Thinking-1 cover on BenchLM?

MAI-Thinking-1 currently has 14 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Gemma 4 12B vs Gemma 4 26B A4B](/compare/gemma-4-12b-vs-gemma-4-26b-a4b)
- [MAI-Thinking-1 vs Gemma 4 26B A4B](/compare/gemma-4-26b-a4b-vs-mai-thinking-1)
- [Gemma 4 12B vs Gemma 4 31B](/compare/gemma-4-12b-vs-gemma-4-31b)
- [MAI-Thinking-1 vs Gemma 4 31B](/compare/gemma-4-31b-vs-mai-thinking-1)

## Explore More

- [Gemma 4 12B profile](/models/gemma-4-12b)
- [MAI-Thinking-1 profile](/models/mai-thinking-1)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)