AI
What is worth using this week: which models people actually spend tokens on, what the vendors ship for your agent, and the tools that already do the work.
Model leaderboard
- 1Claude Opus 5Anthropicclosed$5.00 / $25.00/1M1M ctx
- 2Claude Sonnet 5Anthropicclosed$2.00 / $10.00/1M1M ctx
- 3GPT-5.6 SolOpenAIclosed$2.00 / $10.00/1M1.1M ctx
- 4Gemini 3.8 FlashGoogleclosed$0.75 / $3.75/1M1M ctx
- 5GLM 5.3Z.aiopen$1.40 / $4.40/1M1.3M ctx
- 6DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813DeepSeekopen$0.66 / $1.98/1M1M ctx
- 7Seed-2.0-CodeByteDance Seedclosed$0.50 / $3.00/1M262k ctx
- 1Claude Fable 5.1Anthropicclosed$10.00 / $50.00/1M1M ctx
- 2GPT-5.6 Sol ProOpenAIclosed$2.00 / $10.00/1M1.1M ctx
- 3Grok 4.6SpaceXAIclosed$2.00 / $6.00/1M500k ctx
- 4Kimi K3MoonshotAIopen$3.00 / $15.00/1M1M ctx
- 5Qwen3.8 2.4T A95BQwenopen$2.00 / $6.00/1M1M ctx
- 6DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813DeepSeekopen$0.66 / $1.98/1M1M ctx
- 7Muse Spark 1.3Metaclosed$1.25 / $4.25/1M1M ctx
- 1Granite 4.2 8BIBMopen$0.10 / $0.15/1M131k ctx
- 2Qwen3.8 FlashQwenopen$0.15 / $0.47/1M1M ctx
- 3GLM 5.3 FlashZ.aiopen$0.07 / $0.25/1M1.3M ctx
- 4DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813DeepSeekopen$0.66 / $1.98/1M1M ctx
- 5Nemotron 3.5 LightningNVIDIAopen$0.08 / $0.20/1M262k ctx
- 6Muse Glimmer 30BMetaopen$0.30 / $1.10/1M131k ctx
- 7Inkling SmallThinking Machinesopen$0.45 / $1.20/1M1M ctx
- 1Ling-3.0-flashInclusionaiopen$0.02 / $0.06/1M262k ctx
- 2Nex-N2-MiniNex AGIopen$0.03 / $0.10/1M262k ctx
- 3Granite 4.0 MicroIBMopen$0.02 / $0.11/1M131k ctx
- 4Solar Pro 4Upstageclosed$0.03 / $0.12/1M524k ctx
- 5Qwen3.7 FlashQwenclosed$0.03 / $0.13/1M1M ctx
- 6Laguna XS 2.1Poolsideopen$0.06 / $0.12/1M262k ctx
- 7Ministral 3 3B 2512Mistralopen$0.10 / $0.10/1M131k ctx
- 1Muse Spark 1.3 ContributorMetaclosed$0.10 / $0.20/1M1M ctx
- 2Gemini 3.8 FlashGoogleclosed$0.75 / $3.75/1M1M ctx
- 3Claude Fable 5.1Anthropicclosed$10.00 / $50.00/1M1M ctx
- 4Granite 4.2 8BIBMopen$0.10 / $0.15/1M131k ctx
- 5Ling 3.0 Flash FinInclusionaiclosed$0.06 / $0.18/1M262k ctx
- 6Qwen3.8 FlashQwenopen$0.15 / $0.47/1M1M ctx
- 7GLM 5.3 FlashZ.aiopen$0.07 / $0.25/1M1.3M ctx
prices via OpenRouter models API · 2026-09-03 · USD per 1M tokens, input / output
Official skills
Agentic tools
ChatGPTOpenAI's assistant — chat, reasoning models, image generation, and web browsing behind one box, on desktop, mobile, and the web.AI & MLFreemiumSep 4
ClineAn open-source coding agent for VS Code — it plans, edits files, and runs terminal commands, asking for approval at each step.Vibe CodingOpen sourceSep 4
ElevenLabsText-to-speech and voice cloning behind an API — the studio most teams reach for when a product needs believable synthetic narration.AI & MLFreemiumSep 4
Gemini NotebookUpload your sources and ask questions answered only from them — the research notebook formerly called NotebookLM, audio overviews included.AI & MLFreemiumSep 4
Google GeminiGoogle's assistant built on the Gemini models — long-context reasoning, image and video understanding, and Workspace integration.AI & MLFreemiumSep 4
OpenAI CodexOpenAI's software-engineering agent — hand it a task and it works in a sandboxed copy of the repo, then hands back a reviewable diff.Vibe CodingSep 4
SkillsA registry of agent skills for Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and the rest — browse what people actually install, then add one by command.Vibe CodingFreeSep 4
ZedA Rust-built editor engineered for latency, with multiplayer editing and an agent panel that can drive edits across the whole codebase.Vibe CodingOpen sourceSep 4
Career OpsOpen-source AI job search that runs inside your coding CLI — scans job portals, scores listings, tailors your CV, and tracks applications.Vibe CodingOpen sourceAug 28
Anthropic APIBuild with Claude — the API, SDKs, and docs for production AI applications.AI & MLPaidJul 17
Bolt.newPrompt, run, edit, and deploy full-stack web apps entirely in the browser — powered by StackBlitz WebContainers.Vibe CodingFreemiumJul 17
ClaudeAnthropic's AI assistant for writing, coding, analysis, and research.AI & MLPickFreemiumJul 17
CursorThe AI code editor — agent mode, codebase-aware chat, and inline edits built on a familiar VS Code base.Vibe CodingPickFreemiumJul 17
Hugging FaceThe hub for open machine-learning models, datasets, and demos.AI & MLFreemiumJul 17
LangChainA framework for building applications powered by language models and agents.AI & MLOpen sourceJul 17
LovableBuild complete web apps from a conversation — frontend, backend, and deploys from natural-language prompts.Vibe CodingFreemiumJul 17
OllamaRun open large language models locally with a single command.AI & MLPickOpen sourceJul 17
v0Vercel's generative UI tool — describe a component or page and get production-ready React + Tailwind.Vibe CodingFreemiumJul 17
WindsurfAn agentic AI editor with Cascade — deep codebase awareness and multi-file flows that keep you in the loop.Vibe CodingFreemiumJul 17
MCP servers & plugins
Published by the vendors themselves — the ones you can point an agent at today.- GitHub MCP ServerMCPGitHubOfficialRepositories, issues, pull requests and Actions, exposed to an agent as tools.SiteRepository
- Sentry MCP ServerMCPSentryOfficialQuery issues, events and releases, and hand an agent the stack trace it needs.SiteRepository
- Cloudflare MCP ServersMCPCloudflareOfficialA server per product — Workers, D1, R2, KV, analytics — rather than one that does everything.SiteRepository
- Supabase MCP ServerMCPSupabaseOfficialManage projects, run SQL and inspect schemas from the agent instead of the dashboard.SiteRepository
- Notion MCP ServerMCPNotionOfficialRead and write pages and databases, so notes and specs stay where the team already keeps them.SiteRepository
- Vercel MCPMCPVercelOfficialA hosted endpoint for projects, deployments and logs — no local server to run.Site
- Linear MCPMCPLinearOfficialIssues, projects and cycles, hosted — the agent files the ticket it just wrote the fix for.Site
- Stripe Agent ToolkitPluginStripeOfficialPayments as agent tools, with an MCP server and SDK plugins in the same package.SiteRepository
Reading
Simon Willison4 hours agoThe Pelican comparison grid for Astra is pretty interesting- Simon WillisonOpenAI's rogue agents were caught communicating via public wikis10 hours ago
- Simon WillisonAugust newsletter is out22 hours ago
- Latent Space[AINews] GPT-6 Astra: OpenAI’s biggest LLM launch of all time22 hours ago
- Latent SpaceGPT-6 Astra: an automated AI Engineer you can hire for <$6 an houryesterday
- Simon WillisonGPT‑6 Astrayesterday
- Google ResearchTransfer learning for genomic prediction in underrepresented populationsyesterday
- Google ResearchA connectomics milestone: Mapping the complete male fruit fly brainyesterday
- OpenAIDaybreak for Frontline Defenders: $1B to protect essential services2 days ago
From the blog
- 5 Best AI Tools for Developers to Get Ahead in 2026The AI stack worth learning this year: Claude, the Anthropic API, Ollama, Hugging Face, and LangChain — what each one is actually for, and when to skip it.August 14, 20263 min read