Decision models match LLMs on routing and safety — and are 7-8x faster
randal_olson · x · 2026-10-16
Randal Olson's takeaway from the new Artificial Analysis Decision Index, split by task: use decision models for routing, triage, and moderation; save the LLM for requests needing knowledge or reasoning. Most products should mix both.
The charts back it up: on safety classification and tool-call routing, decision models are about as accurate as LLMs, yet every decision model tested answered faster than every LLM — 7x faster at the median on safety classification and 8x faster on tool-call routing. LLMs dominate knowledge questions (30 points higher) and hard reasoning/HLE (19 points higher).
Related event: Decision models match LLMs on routing and safety tasks at 7-8x speed(3 posts)→
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