How to pick an AI model in 2026

Most people pick an AI model backward. They read the leaderboard, see which name is on top this week, and reach for that one for everything. Then they pay frontier prices to write a meeting summary a much cheaper model would have nailed. The better move is to start with the work, not the model. Ask what the task actually is before you ask which model. A daily driver has to be strong across everything because you grab it before the job is even clean. A cheap workhorse earns its spot the moment t