agent · 2.6% of classified traffic
Best AI model for multi-step planning
As of August 9, 2026, DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423 leads multi-step planning with 25% of classified production usage for this task on OpenRouter. Ranking reflects what developers actually run for this task, not a benchmark opinion.
- #1 DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423 - 25% of task usage
- #2 Tencent: Hy3 - 7% of task usage
- #3 OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch) - 6% of task usage
- #4 Z.ai: GLM 5.2 (batch) - 4% of task usage
- #5 DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Pro - 4% of task usage
- #6 Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite (batch) - 4% of task usage
- #7 Xiaomi: MiMo-V2.5 - 3% of task usage
- #8 Google: Gemini 3 Flash Preview (batch) - 2% of task usage
- #9 MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 - 2% of task usage
| # | Model | Task usage | Quality |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423 | 25.1% | 51.8 |
| 02 | Tencent: Hy3 | 6.7% | - |
| 03 | OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna (batch) | 6.2% | 52.3 |
| 04 | Z.ai: GLM 5.2 (batch) | 3.9% | 52.6 |
| 05 | DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Pro | 3.7% | 45.3 |
| 06 | Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite (batch) | 3.5% | - |
| 07 | Xiaomi: MiMo-V2.5 | 3.4% | 38 |
| 08 | Google: Gemini 3 Flash Preview (batch) | 2.3% | - |
| 09 | MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 | 2.2% | 59.7 |
Task usage shares come from OpenRouter's real classified traffic, tracked daily. Shares are a fraction of classified traffic for this task only - the unclassified bucket is excluded, so figures may not sum to 100%.
This ranks by measured usage volume for this specific task, not by model capability. High-cost frontier models (e.g. Claude Opus, GPT-5.6 Sol) can be strong at multi-step planning but still not appear here - they're used at far lower volume than cheap, high-throughput models for bulk, cost-sensitive tasks like this one, which is a real pattern in the traffic data, not a quality verdict. The Quality column above (Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, where published) is the independent capability signal to weigh against usage share.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best AI model for multi-step planning?
As of August 9, 2026, DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423 leads multi-step planning with 25% of classified production usage for this task on OpenRouter - real developer adoption for this specific task, not a benchmark opinion.
Is multi-step planning usage concentrated among a few models?
The top 3 models account for 38% of classified multi-step planning usage across 9 tracked models.
Source: OpenRouter (openrouter.ai/rankings), as of August 9, 2026.
Benchmark scores: Artificial Analysis (artificialanalysis.ai) via OpenRouter (openrouter.ai/rankings).
Methodology: smophy.ai/benchmark/methodology
Token counts originate from each provider's own tokenizer and are not directly comparable across providers.