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Understanding the Names of the Major AI Models

Preview: Understanding AI model names helps you choose the right tool for each task. Basic models like "mini" or "flash" are fast and cheap, while "pro" and "research" models offer deeper reasoning at higher costs.

Deeper, more expensive models typically take longer to process and give an answer. It is not unusual for me to ask complex questions that require 2 or 3 minutes to research and answer. You'll notice a pattern. Frequently you can correctly guess the model strength from the name. Basic bots are called "mini" or "flash," and mid-levels are called "pro." Higher levels may be called "Pro", "Research", "Thinking " or simply have the highest model number.

All of these models are currently available on Poe.

I recommend using a simple, cheaper model as your default and then using the more expensive ones when needed.

Xai: Grok

Basic: Grok-4 fast non-reasoning: is quick and not too bright, but cheap and sufficient for most simple questions. Grok 4 mini is also quick and limited, but still quite useful. Grok 3 Mini is even cheaper and very fast. Grok 4.1 Non-reasoning is very fast and cost effective. Non-reasoners aren't really stupid, just no advanced multi-step reasoning.

Mid-Tier: Grok 3 and Grok 4.1 fast reasoning, Grok 4 fast reasoning.

Advanced Grok 4. This is full reasoning and their latest model. Slower, higher cost, but deeper analysis.

Google's Gemini Models

Basic 2.5 flash, 3 flash. Use 3; there isn't enough savings to drop down to 2.5.
Mid 2.5 Pro
High 3 Pro: Actually, I find Gemini 3 Pro more mid-tier. Nothing like the advanced ones available, but excellent for most of my queries. Also priced at a mid-point, not high.

Anthropic's Claude

Basic Haiku models are basic. I like their Haiku 4.5 for basic stuff.
Sonnet Sonnet models are their mid-tier. I often use Sonnet 4.5 for my normal queries.
Opus Opus models are their flagship, top-tier, most expensive. Opus 4.5 is their latest, deepest, and most expensive.

With Anthropic's models, you normally need to specify a maximum thinking budget and also whether to search the web. The maximum thinking budget is the most it can think, not what it'll really do. It does not maximize the budget. This is called the thinking budget, but it really means additional thinking budget. It thinks just fine, but if you think it might need deeper thought and more steps, you can give it permission to use extra thinking resources.

Mistral

Basic 7B-v0.3-DI quick, cheap, instruction-following chat optimized.
Mid Mistral also has a large model, Mistral Large, that I use quite a bit. It also seems more like a mid-level bot.
High Magistral Medium 2509 Thinking. The name really says it all. The 2509 in this indicates that its training ended in September of 2025. Fast reasoning, solid.

Perplexity

Basic Sonar is their base model. It is fine for everyday use. Unlike Anthropic, it uses web search as a basic part of the system, so the basic Sonar model can be pricier but still fairly quick and inexpensive.
Mid Sonar Pro: More reasoning, more search results. Slower, more expensive, and for Sonar-rsn-pro the "rsn" is for reasoning. This is the same as pro but adds more reasoning at a higher cost.
High Sonar-deep-research: This can take a few minutes to complete. It is slow, smart, and does much more thorough research.

Open AI

Basic GPT-4o mini and GPT-05-mini are small, fast, and limited. They are lower cost than other GPT models but still seem expensive to me.
Mid GPT-4o: Mid-level, mid-cost, mid-smarts, mid-speed. The o in the name is for Omni. This means it can do many different types of tasks, including audio, chat, images, and video.
High GPT--5.2: These are medium speed, better reasoning.
Research This morning I used 04-mini-deep-research. I wanted in-depth current research results on whether the hype regarding adding Vitamin K2 to Vitamin D3 was real and proven or a fad. I wanted them put together. Despite being a "mini" model, it cost about 8 times as much as that query would cost with Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Gemini 3 Pro. However, I got extensive, in-depth research and a clear research-based answer. I ordered some immediately after.

If you want the bot to do extensive research, and be able to analyze the studies for validity, you want heavy search and deep reasoning. Expect to pay.