Agent work rewards models that stay on task for hours, use tools reliably and check their own output. As of October 2026, Claude Opus 5.5 is the strongest agent for coding: Anthropic reports 89.9% on SWE-bench Pro and says it spends fewer tokens per completed task than Opus 5. GPT-6 Astra is the computer-use leader, at 72.6% on OSWorld 2.0 in OpenAI's table. For cheaper agents, GPT-6.1 Sol and Claude Sonnet 5.5 cost $2/$10, and Claude Haiku 5.5 is built for sub-agents at $0.10/$0.50.
The safest agentic tasks default, the cheaper option worth trying first, and the specialist pick — before you read the detail below.
Claude Opus 5.5 is the strongest answer here for agentic tasks — pick it when quality of output matters more than the $4.00/1M/1M input you pay for it.
GPT-6.1 Sol handles the same job for about 50% less per token. Start here and only move up if the output is not good enough.
Claude Haiku 5.5 is the fastest of these for agentic tasks — worth it when latency is what the reader notices, not the last few points of reasoning depth.
Claude Opus 5.5 is the strongest coding agent, by its 89.9% SWE-bench Pro figure.
GPT-6 Astra leads computer use (72.6% OSWorld 2.0) — the pick for agents that drive a browser or desktop.
Agent cost is per finished task, not per token: a model that needs fewer turns can be cheaper than a lower sticker price.
Choose Claude Opus 5.5 for coding agents, PR automation and long multi-file changes.
Choose GPT-6 Astra when the agent must click, type and navigate software; GPT-6.1 Sol comes close at a fifth of the price.
Choose Claude Haiku 5.5 for sub-agents and tool-heavy steps inside a larger system, with reasoning set per step.
Switch the scoring lens to see whether the agentic tasks answer changes when cost, speed, or long-document depth leads the decision.
Anthropic / Balanced / Oct 10, 2026
Near-Opus 5.5 quality on scoped work at half the price.
Ranks models by the broadest mix of coding, writing, research, and long-context usefulness.
The work is long, ambiguous and multi-step — Anthropic positions Opus 5.5 for exactly that — or you need the lowest possible price, where Haiku 5.5 costs a twentieth as much.
Where the agentic tasks recommendation shifts once you weigh price or latency differently.
Anthropic's new coding default — top SWE-bench Pro score at a lower price than Opus 5.
OpenAI's frontier answer to Fable 5.1 — computer-use and agentic-coding leader at $10/$50.
Near-Astra capability at Sol pricing — OpenAI's value pick.
Near-Opus 5.5 quality on scoped work at half the price.
Anthropic's budget model, now with adjustable reasoning, at $0.10/$0.50.
List prices and published scores — the numbers this page's pick is built from.
| Model | Input | Output | Est. month | Context | Speed | Coding | Writing | Research |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 5.5Anthropic | $4.00/1M | $20.00/1M | $80 | 1M tokens | Deliberate | 100 | 97 | 99 |
| GPT-6 AstraOpenAI | $10.00/1M | $50.00/1M | $200 | 1.1M tokens | Deliberate | 100 | 97 | 100 |
| GPT-6.1 SolOpenAI | $2.00/1M | $10.00/1M | $40 | 1.1M tokens | Balanced | 98 | 94 | 97 |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5Anthropic | $2.00/1M | $10.00/1M | $40 | 1M tokens | Fast | 98 | 98 | 95 |
Scores out of 100 — how we evaluate models. “Est. month” is 10M in / 2M out at list price: a ceiling, no discounts.
Why each one is on the shortlist for agentic tasks, what it is genuinely good at, and where we would steer you away from it.
Our pick for agentic tasks. It scores 100/100 on the coding axis we weight this page by, and nothing else in this shortlist matches it on output quality.
Anthropic's September 22, 2026 Opus — a step up from Opus 5 on agentic coding, long-running agent work and vision, at a lower $4/$20 list price and with fewer tokens spent per finished task.
Your tasks are well-scoped and latency-sensitive — Sonnet 5.5 is half the price and Anthropic says it is the fastest Sonnet yet.
The new premium coding default from Anthropic. Opus 5.5 posts the highest SWE-bench Pro figure in any launch table we track and costs less than Opus 5 did. Fable 5.1 still makes sense for the hardest open-ended research at $10/$50; for almost everything else Opus 5.5 is the better buy, and Sonnet 5.5 at half the price is close behind on well-scoped work.
Full pricing, benchmark table and release notes on the Claude Opus 5.5 page.
The alternative to check next for agentic tasks — 100/100 on coding.
OpenAI's September 3, 2026 frontier release — the first GPT-6 model and OpenAI's answer to Claude Fable 5.1 two days earlier. State of the art on computer use (OSWorld 2.0 72.6% in ~47% less time than GPT-5.6 Sol), agentic coding (Terminal-Bench 4.0 57.9%), and frontier math (FrontierMath Tier 4 97.6%). $10/$50 per 1M tokens, 1.05M context, 128K output, knowledge cutoff April 30, 2026.
You are cost-sensitive or latency-bound — GPT-5.6 Sol is a fifth of the price — or you need it today in an Enterprise workspace, where it is off by default, or for offensive-security work, which it refuses outside OpenAI Daybreak.
The new computer-use and agentic-coding ceiling, and OpenAI's first model priced like a Mythos-class Claude. Astra beats Claude Fable 5.1 on Terminal-Bench 4.0 (57.9% vs 55.8%), Terminal-Bench Science (64.6% vs 52.6%) and FrontierMath Tier 4 (97.6% vs 87.8%), and it is the only model with a credible OSWorld 2.0 result above 70%. It loses to Fable 5.1 on Humanity's Last Exam and on Artificial Analysis's index, costs five times GPT-5.6 Sol, and ships without a SWE-bench number. If your work is computer use, browser agents or math, it is the pick; for everyday coding at scale, Sol at $2/$10 remains the value default.
Full pricing, benchmark table and release notes on the GPT-6 Astra page.
Where most budgets should land for agentic tasks — about 50% less per token than Claude Opus 5.5, and still 98/100 on the coding axis.
Near-Astra capability at Sol pricing — OpenAI's value pick. Full GPT-6.1 Sol review →
Also worth a look for agentic tasks, at 98/100 on the coding axis.
Near-Opus 5.5 quality on scoped work at half the price. Full Claude Sonnet 5.5 review →
UseRightAI recommendations are based on practical decision factors people actually feel in day-to-day use.
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Claude Opus 5.5 for coding agents (89.9% SWE-bench Pro, Anthropic's figure) and GPT-6 Astra for computer-use agents (72.6% OSWorld 2.0, OpenAI's figure). GPT-6.1 Sol is the value pick, which independent testing puts one point behind Astra at a fifth of the price.
All current frontier models support structured tool calling. In practice the Claude 5.5 models and GPT-6 family are the most reliable at following tool schemas over long runs; budget models make more parameter mistakes, so validate their tool calls.
Yes. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, GLM-5.3 and Kimi K3 all support function calling and work in frameworks such as LangGraph. Expect less reliability than Claude Opus 5.5 or GPT-6 Astra on long multi-step tasks, and test on your own workload.