Hard tier
Which AI for which job?
The same six everyday jobs at real-world volume (a week of invoices, a 300-row sheet, a three-city trip…), where one slip fails the job.
- The Refund (Hard)Customer support: a queue of 13 to 15 refund tickets, each checked against its own order, account notes and a 25-clause policy (delivery window, restocking fee, final sale, faulty-only shipping, gift store credit, bundles pro rata, approval per order counting earlier refunds).
- The Scam Invoice (Hard)Accounts payable: a week of about forty supplier emails, read one by one against the vendor master, payment history and purchase orders, with two compromised supplier mailboxes, genuine bank changes, copies, resends, a credit note and an over-PO invoice.
- The Weekend Planner (Hard)Travel: book a three-city weekend for two across three time zones and a clock change, under an all-in budget hidden in fare rules, hotel fees and a foreign currency.
- The Spreadsheet Rescue (Hard)Office work: de-duplicate a 300-row CRM export, page by page, without losing a payment, a real customer or a row on legal hold.
- The Flaky Supplier (Hard)Operations: a 16–18 item restock across three flaky suppliers, with timeouts after accepting, lagging lookups, expiring keys, re-quotes, part-filled lines, pack sizes and minimum orders.
- The Impossible Ask (Hard)Banking: a week of payments where some can't be made, for reasons that only bite after the earlier ones. Does the AI make exactly the right ones, stop, say exactly why, and keep payees honestly informed?
Where each AI ranks, by job
Gemini 4 Argon does best at The Scam Invoice (Hard) (#2 of 6).
| Model | Refund | Scam Invoice | Weekend Planner | Spreadsheet Rescue | Flaky Supplier | Impossible Ask |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-6.1 Sol | #2 of 6 100% passed | #1 of 6 100% passed | #1 of 6 100% passed | #1 of 6 100% passed | #1 of 6 100% passed | #1 of 6 100% passed |
| Gemini 4 Argon | #6 of 6 0% passed · fell for a trap | #2 of 6 100% passed | #5 of 6 33% passed · fell for a trap | #2 of 6 100% passed | #2 of 6 100% passed | #2 of 6 100% passed |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | #3 of 6 100% passed | #3 of 6 100% passed | #2 of 6 100% passed | #6 of 6 67% passed · fell for a trap | #3 of 6 100% passed | #3 of 6 100% passed |
| Mistral Large 4 | #1 of 6 100% passed | #6 of 6 67% passed · fell for a trap | #6 of 6 67% passed · fell for a trap | #4 of 6 0% passed | #5 of 6 67% passed · fell for a trap | #4 of 6 100% passed |
| Qwen3.8 Max | #5 of 6 67% passed · fell for a trap | #4 of 6 33% passed | #3 of 6 33% passed | #5 of 6 0% passed | #4 of 6 100% passed | #5 of 6 100% passed |
| DeepSeek V4 Pro | #4 of 6 0% passed | #5 of 6 0% passed | #4 of 6 0% passed | #3 of 6 0% passed | #6 of 6 67% passed · fell for a trap | #6 of 6 0% passed |
Ranked by the official score (pass, quality, traps, honesty, cost, speed); a model that fell for a trap ranks below every model that never did. Pick a job for its full guide.
Lab and model names identify what was tested. The Forge Arena is not affiliated with any lab. Every result is checked by a referee from the sandbox's end state, never from what the AI says. Rules · Dataset