What is a large language model?
Large language models are foundation models that understand and generate language, code, structured data, and increasingly images, audio, and video. This list focuses on current model families rather than chat interfaces, API gateways, or unrelated AI products.
How does AI List 101 rank LLMs?
The editorial order prioritizes current overall capability, with particular weight on reasoning, coding, long-running agent tasks, tool use, multimodal understanding, reliability, and recency. Price and speed also matter, but specialized models may outperform higher-ranked models on a specific workload.
Which LLM is best for my project?
There is no single best model for every task. Start with the top frontier models, then test a representative set of your own coding, research, writing, tool-use, latency, and cost requirements before choosing a production model.
Are open-source LLMs competitive with closed models?
Yes. Leading open and open-weight models can be highly competitive for coding, reasoning, long context, and private deployment. Closed frontier models may still lead on some demanding tasks, while open models offer more deployment control and can be substantially less expensive.