Stop asking which model is best: a 4-factor routing framework for production AI workflows
TeqPumpkin999 · reddit · 2026-09-18
A developer argues model choice should be a routing problem, not a "which model is best" question. Score each task in the workflow on four factors:
- reasoning difficulty
- cost of a wrong answer
- data sensitivity
- expected volume / cost ceiling
Then route accordingly: open-weight or fine-tuned models for high-volume low-risk tasks, frontier reasoning models for high-risk judgment, specialist models for OCR/embeddings/moderation, and a separate eval/judge model as regression gates.
The author asks whether others route by task family or standardize on one model until it breaks.
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