Model Comparison

Claude Opus 4.8 vs MAI-Thinking-1Which is better in 2026?

Claude Opus 4.8 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Verdict: Claude Opus 4.8 vs MAI-Thinking-1 — which is better?

Claude Opus 4.8 (by Anthropic) and MAI-Thinking-1 (by Microsoft) are two of the AI models people compare most. Here is how they stack up on benchmarks, price and capabilities, and which one to pick in 2026.

Claude Opus 4.8 outperforms in 5 benchmarks (GPQA, HealthBench Professional, SWE-Bench Pro, SWE-Bench Verified, Terminal-Bench 2.0), while MAI-Thinking-1 is better at 0 benchmarks. Claude Opus 4.8 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Choose Claude Opus 4.8 if…

  • you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 5 of 5 shared benchmarks

Choose MAI-Thinking-1 if…

  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jun 2026

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

5 benchmarks

Claude Opus 4.8 outperforms in 5 benchmarks (GPQA, HealthBench Professional, SWE-Bench Pro, SWE-Bench Verified, Terminal-Bench 2.0), while MAI-Thinking-1 is better at 0 benchmarks.

Claude Opus 4.8 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Fri Jul 17 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Claude Opus 4.8 specifies input context (1,000,000 tokens). Only Claude Opus 4.8 specifies output context (128,000 tokens).

Anthropic
Claude Opus 4.8
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Microsoft
MAI-Thinking-1
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Fri Jul 17 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Claude Opus 4.8 supports multimodal inputs, whereas MAI-Thinking-1 does not.

Claude Opus 4.8 can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Claude Opus 4.8

Text
Images
Audio
Video

MAI-Thinking-1

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Both models are licensed under proprietary licenses.

Both models have usage restrictions defined by their respective organizations.

Claude Opus 4.8

Proprietary

Closed source

MAI-Thinking-1

Proprietary

Closed source

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Claude Opus 4.8 was released on 2026-05-28, while MAI-Thinking-1 was released on 2026-06-02.

MAI-Thinking-1 is 0 month newer than Claude Opus 4.8.

Claude Opus 4.8

May 28, 2026

1 months ago

MAI-Thinking-1

Jun 2, 2026

1 months ago

5d newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.

Unable to compare the recency of their training data.

No cutoff dates available

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Key Takeaways

Anthropic
Larger context window (1,000,000 tokens)
Supports multimodal inputs
Higher GPQA score (93.6% vs 84.2%)
Higher HealthBench Professional score (55.8% vs 35.0%)
Higher SWE-Bench Pro score (69.2% vs 52.8%)
Higher SWE-Bench Verified score (88.6% vs 73.5%)
Higher Terminal-Bench 2.0 score (74.6% vs 46.0%)
Microsoft

No standout differentiators in the data we have for this pair.

Detailed Comparison

Interactive Arena

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Claude Opus 4.8 and MAI-Thinking-1 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Claude Opus 4.8
✓ Preferred
MAI-Thinking-1
Open in Playground
AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Anthropic
Claude Opus 4.8
Microsoft
MAI-Thinking-1

FAQ

Common questions about Claude Opus 4.8 vs MAI-Thinking-1.

Which is better, Claude Opus 4.8 or MAI-Thinking-1?

Claude Opus 4.8 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Claude Opus 4.8 is made by Anthropic and MAI-Thinking-1 is made by Microsoft. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their benchmark scores, pricing, and capabilities above.

How does Claude Opus 4.8 compare to MAI-Thinking-1 in benchmarks?

Claude Opus 4.8 scores GPQA: 93.6%, DeepSearchQA: 93.1%, CharXiv-R: 89.9%, SWE-Bench Verified: 88.6%, ScreenSpot Pro: 87.9%. MAI-Thinking-1 scores LongFact: 98.0%, AIME 2025: 97.0%, AIME 2026: 94.5%, GraphWalks: 90.0%, AIR-Bench: 88.0%.

What are the context window sizes for Claude Opus 4.8 and MAI-Thinking-1?

Claude Opus 4.8 supports 1.0M tokens and MAI-Thinking-1 supports an unknown number of tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Claude Opus 4.8 and MAI-Thinking-1?

Key differences include multimodal support (yes vs no). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Claude Opus 4.8 and MAI-Thinking-1?

Claude Opus 4.8 is developed by Anthropic and MAI-Thinking-1 is developed by Microsoft.

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