Raycast AI Models Compared 2026: GPT-5 vs Claude vs Grok vs Gemini

Raycast's biggest advantage in 2026 isn't a single model — it's the fact that every frontier model ships in one launcher. GPT-5, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, Gemini, Grok, Perplexity Sonar, and a stack of open-weight options are all a keystroke away. The hard question isn't which to subscribe to. It's which to use for the task in front of you.

This is a decision-grade comparison. No marketing fluff, no "it depends" cop-outs. We look at speed, quality, price-per-task, and give you pick-by-use-case recommendations. For a fuller catalog of what's available, see our complete list of Raycast Pro AI models. If you just want to try everything at a discount, the current 80% off deal unlocks Pro plus a free trial of the Advanced AI add-on.

Raycast's 2026 AI Model Lineup at a Glance

Here's the short version. Nine models worth knowing, grouped by what they're actually good at.

GPT-5 Series in Raycast

OpenAI's GPT-5 family is the default choice for most users, and for good reason. It sits at the top of MMLU, HumanEval, and GPQA benchmarks in early-2026 evaluations. Raycast exposes five variants, and knowing when to use each saves you real money and real seconds.

• GPT-5 — The balanced flagship. Use it as your default for coding, drafting, and general Q&A.
• GPT-5.1 — Mid-2026 refresh. Modestly better at instruction following and tool use, same price tier as GPT-5.
• GPT-5 Reasoning — Chain-of-thought mode. Slow (10-30s) but crushes hard math, competitive programming, and multi-step logic.
• GPT-5 mini — Roughly 5x cheaper than GPT-5, about 80% of the quality. Great default for AI Commands.
• GPT-5 nano — Sub-second latency. Use it for snippet rewrites, format conversions, quick translations.

Pairing GPT-5 with Raycast's Quick AI command (Tab key from the launcher) is one of the fastest ways to replace the ChatGPT app entirely. Our Raycast ChatGPT guide walks through the exact setup.

Claude 3.7 Sonnet: The Long-Context Champion

Claude 3.7 Sonnet has quietly become the power-user favorite in Raycast. The 200K token context window is the biggest in the mainstream lineup — you can paste in an entire codebase, a 400-page PDF, or a week of chat logs and get coherent analysis back.

Where Claude pulls ahead of GPT-5:

• Refactors across multiple files — it tracks imports, types, and conventions more consistently
• Long-form writing — better prose rhythm, fewer clichés, more varied sentence length
• Nuance and refusals — more willing to reason about edge cases without moralizing

The 3.7 "Extended Thinking" mode is Anthropic's answer to GPT-5 Reasoning. Toggle it on inside Raycast and you trade speed for deeper analysis. For the full setup, see our Raycast + Claude integration guide.

Google Gemini, Perplexity Sonar, xAI Grok

Three specialists that beat everyone else in their lanes.

Gemini 2.5 Pro ships a one-million-token context window. That's enough to load an entire mid-sized repository in one shot. It's also natively multimodal — drag in images, PDFs, or audio clips and Gemini reads them without a separate step. For document summarization over anything larger than ~50 pages, it's the clear winner.

Perplexity Sonar is the only model in the Raycast lineup with live web grounding baked in. Ask it "what shipped in macOS Tahoe this week?" and you get real citations from the last 48 hours, not a training-cutoff hallucination. It's not as strong at pure reasoning, but for any research query, Sonar should be your first stop.

Grok 3 trained on real-time X data, so it's the model to use for current events, trending conversations, and cultural context. It also has a looser tone — handy for social-media drafting where GPT-5 can sound robotic.

Mistral, Llama 4, DeepSeek, Moonshot Kimi

Raycast's open-weight and third-party tier rounds out the lineup.

• Mistral Large 2 — French lab, strong on European languages, favored by users with EU data-residency preferences
• Llama 4 — Meta's 2026 flagship. Competitive on benchmarks, fully open weights. Good ethical-sourcing story.
• DeepSeek V3 — Punches above its weight on math and coding for roughly a tenth of the cost of GPT-5
• Moonshot Kimi K2 — Strong at Chinese-language tasks and massive context (up to 2M tokens in some modes)

None of these will replace GPT-5 or Claude 3.7 as your daily driver, but they're worth keeping in rotation for cost-sensitive automation or language-specific work.

Which Raycast AI Model Should You Use?

Straight picks, no hedging.

• Coding (single file) — GPT-5 or GPT-5.1
• Coding (whole repo) — Claude 3.7 Sonnet
• Hard math / logic puzzles — GPT-5 Reasoning
• Long-form writing — Claude 3.7 Sonnet
• Quick rewrites and snippets — GPT-5 nano or Ray-1
• Research with citations — Perplexity Sonar
• Massive docs / PDFs — Gemini 2.5 Pro
• Current events and trends — Grok 3
• Multilingual / EU privacy — Mistral Large 2
• Budget automation — DeepSeek V3 or GPT-5 mini

Raycast lets you pin different models to different AI Commands. Set Claude 3.7 as the default for your "Refactor this code" command, GPT-5 nano for "Fix grammar," and Sonar for "Research topic." Our AI Commands guide shows exactly how to wire this up.

Raycast's Ray-1 vs Everything Else

Ray-1 is Raycast's own small model, fine-tuned specifically for launcher-style tasks: command interpretation, short completions, and structured outputs. It's fast, runs on Raycast's infrastructure, and is included in every Pro plan with no extra token billing.

Ray-1 won't beat GPT-5 on a coding problem. But for the 80% of Raycast AI calls that are "turn this into a filename" or "write a two-line summary," Ray-1 is instant and free. Think of it as the model that runs when you don't want to think about which model to use.

How to Unlock Premium Models

Here's the pricing reality. Raycast Pro at $8/month includes Ray-1, GPT-5 mini, GPT-5 nano, Claude 3.5 Haiku, Perplexity Sonar, Mistral, Llama 4, and DeepSeek — a generous spread. To unlock GPT-5, GPT-5.1, GPT-5 Reasoning, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and Grok 3, you need the Advanced AI add-on for an additional $8/month.

That's $16/month total for every frontier model on the market. Compare that to stacking ChatGPT Plus ($20), Claude Pro ($20), Gemini Advanced ($20), and Perplexity Pro ($20) — that's $80/month for the same access, scattered across four apps.

With the current 80% off Raycast Pro deal, the math gets absurd. You get a 14-day free trial, then locked-in reduced pricing on both Pro and — in most cases — the Advanced AI add-on. For a full pricing breakdown, see our Raycast Pro pricing guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which AI model is best in Raycast in 2026?

There is no single best model. GPT-5 is the strongest all-rounder for reasoning and general tasks, Claude 3.7 Sonnet wins for long-form writing and deep coding with its 200K context window, and Perplexity Sonar is unbeatable for live web research. Most Raycast Pro users switch between 2-3 models depending on the task.

Is Claude 3.7 better than GPT-5 in Raycast?

Claude 3.7 Sonnet edges out GPT-5 for large-context coding tasks, nuanced writing, and refactors across multiple files thanks to its 200K token window. GPT-5 tends to win on raw reasoning benchmarks, math, and multimodal tasks. For most developers, both are worth having and Raycast lets you swap between them instantly.

Which Raycast AI model is fastest?

GPT-5 nano and Gemini 2.5 Flash are the fastest models in Raycast, often responding in under a second for short prompts. Raycast's own Ray-1 model is also optimized for speed on quick commands. Use these for everyday snippets, translations, and short rewrites.

Do I need the Advanced AI add-on for GPT-5?

Yes. Raycast Pro includes a generous selection of standard models including GPT-5 mini, Claude 3.5 Haiku, and Ray-1. To access the full GPT-5, GPT-5 Reasoning, Claude 3.7 Sonnet Extended Thinking, and other frontier models, you need the Advanced AI add-on which is $8/month on top of Pro.