Best AI for Chatbots
Compare AI models for building chatbots and virtual assistants — conversational quality, response speed and cost at scale.Rankings combine multiple benchmark scores weighted by relevance to this use case. Updated August 2026.
Why This Matters
Chatbots is one of the most common AI workloads — and the best model depends heavily on the specific task. A model that excels at creative writing may struggle with structured data extraction, and vice versa.
We built this use-case ranking by combining multiple benchmark categories with weights tuned to match real-world usage patterns. For chatbots, the score emphasizes the benchmarks that matter most: task accuracy, output quality, and consistency. Speed and cost are factored in but secondary to quality.
All scores are from public independent benchmarks. For a broader view across all tasks, see the overall LLM leaderboard or the expert picks page.
Quick Answer
The best AI models for chatbots are:1. GLM-5.3 Flash (Z.ai, score: 80.1), 2. Qwen3.8 Flash Next (Alibaba, score: 79.6), 3. Gemini 3.1 Pro (Google, score: 76.8).
| # | Model | Provider | Score | Speed | Price (output) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | GLM-5.3 Flash | Z.ai | 80.1 | 182 t/s | $0.3/M |
| 2 | Qwen3.8 Flash Next | Alibaba | 79.6 | 168 t/s | $0.4/M |
| 3 | Gemini 3.1 Pro | 76.8 | 136 t/s | $12/M | |
| 4 | HyperNova 60B | Multiverse | 75.1 | 367 t/s | $0.14/M |
| 5 | Gemini 3.8 Flash | 73.3 | 302 t/s | $3.75/M | |
| 6 | Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium Reasoning) | 73.3 | 315 t/s | $3.75/M | |
| 7 | Gemini 3.8 Flash (Low Reasoning) | 73.3 | 340 t/s | $3.75/M | |
| 8 | GPT-6 Sol (Non-reasoning) | OpenAI | 72.9 | 265 t/s | $4/M |
| 9 | GPT-6 Sol (xhigh) | OpenAI | 70.5 | 210 t/s | $4/M |
| 10 | GPT-6 Sol | OpenAI | 70.5 | 220 t/s | $4/M |
| 11 | GPT-6 Sol (high) | OpenAI | 70.5 | 226 t/s | $4/M |
| 12 | GPT-6 Sol (medium) | OpenAI | 70.5 | 238 t/s | $4/M |
| 13 | GPT-6 Sol (low) | OpenAI | 70.5 | 250 t/s | $4/M |
| 14 | Granite 4.2 3B Instruct | IBM | 69.6 | 148 t/s | $0.2/M |
| 15 | Qwen3.7 Max | Alibaba | 69.1 | 203 t/s | $7.5/M |