I REALLY Want Open Models to Win, But They Just Don't Cut It (Yet) — Transcript
Full transcript
- 0:00Every single time a new open model comes
- 0:02out, like a new Kimi, GLM, or DeepSeek
- 0:04model, I always get excited because they
- 0:06show these really promising benchmarks
- 0:08and they say that they match or approach
- 0:09the strongest proprietary models for AI
- 0:12coding. And I think to myself, just for
- 0:14that day, "Oh man, we've finally gotten
- 0:16to the point where open weight models
- 0:18are as good as frontier models for AI
- 0:20coding, so we don't have to rely on the
- 0:22big companies anymore like Anthropic and
- 0:24OpenAI for everything." But then I
- 0:26actually test the model and I'm
- 0:28disappointed every single time. But
- 0:31exactly how these open models disappoint
- 0:33me actually has a lot of nuance to it
- 0:34because genuinely they are impressive
- 0:36and they do match the performance of the
- 0:39best frontier models on a lot of
- 0:41different things for a fraction of the
- 0:42cost. Like looking at Terminal Bench 4.0
- 0:44here, comparing Kimi K3.1 Pro Max to
- 0:47GPT-6 Astra and Claude Opus 5.5, it's
- 0:50even a bit better in this benchmark. And
- 0:52so the question I had to ask myself is
- 0:54what gives? How come Kimi, Qwen, GLM,
- 0:57all these companies can release these
- 0:59open models with benchmarks saying that
- 1:01they're better than the best frontiers,
- 1:02but then when I actually try to use it
- 1:03to build real things, it just falls
- 1:06apart. And so that's what I want to
- 1:07cover with you in this video, why I
- 1:09can't use open models for all my AI
- 1:11coding, the testing that I did so I can
- 1:13really prove it to you, and then also
- 1:15the solution because I really am rooting
- 1:17for open models. I do think this is the
- 1:20future and so I want to incorporate them
- 1:22as much as I can and there are a lot of
- 1:24ways to do so even if we don't hand over
- 1:26all of our workflows. Now, don't get me
- 1:28wrong, I love using my Codex Code
- 1:30subscriptions. I'm using them every day,
- 1:32but those subscriptions are not
- 1:33guaranteed to be around forever and we
- 1:35all know the rate limits are getting
- 1:36worse. And so I don't want to be
- 1:38dependent on that. And if it ever got to
- 1:40the point where I had to pay the API
- 1:42pricing for Opus 5.5 or GPT-6 Astra, it
- 1:45would not be realistic for me
- 1:47financially to be using it for most
- 1:49things just considering the amount of
- 1:50tokens I'm using every day. Now, there
- 1:52are a lot of other reasons to root for
- 1:54open models and invest into using them,
- 1:56but we don't have to get into that right
- 1:57now. I want to focus on the performance
- 1:59here. This is the big dichotomy that
- 2:01I've seen. Frontier models and open
- 2:04models are equivalent in performance
- 2:06when you give them shorter tasks, even
- 2:08if they are more complicated and require
- 2:10some deeper reasoning. And so, there's a
- 2:12lot of different tasks that I've given
- 2:14both frontier and open models, and I've
- 2:16had a separate agent review them, and
- 2:18then I've also reviewed the outputs
- 2:19myself. And it is basically equivalent.
- 2:22And of course, using the open models
- 2:24here, it's a lot cheaper. And so, for
- 2:26these kinds of tasks, in fact, for most
- 2:29business automations and use cases for
- 2:31agents, open models win.
- 2:33I've even seen a lot of studies and
- 2:35professional opinions circulating
- 2:36recently that say things like open
- 2:38weight models will run 90% of enterprise
- 2:40agentic workflow steps. And they usually
- 2:42cite within around 2 to 5 years, cuz
- 2:44we're not at that level of mass adoption
- 2:46yet, but we're getting there very
- 2:48quickly. And I'm even seeing this myself
- 2:49as I work with companies, and I see how
- 2:51they're very cautious for token spend,
- 2:54especially within the last half year.
- 2:55And for a lot of these open weight
- 2:57models, to run it locally because
- 2:58they're dealing with sensitive data. And
- 3:00the thing is, 9 in 10 agent workflow
- 3:02steps are routine, and open weight
- 3:04models handle them at parity for a
- 3:06quarter of the price of even the
- 3:08cheapest closed model, something like
- 3:10Haiku 5.5. And so, the point is, where
- 3:12we really need to have agents built into
- 3:15larger business automations, it's just a
- 3:16step in the workflow where we don't have
- 3:18to have GPT-6 Astra or Opus 5.5. Most
- 3:22things you can have a weaker model that
- 3:25gets the job done and is a lot cheaper.
- 3:26And that's where open weight models win
- 3:28every time. And I say weaker, but really
- 3:30I should correct myself, because like I
- 3:32was saying, for the short-running tasks,
- 3:34the open models are just as good as the
- 3:36frontier models. Where they really fall
- 3:38apart, and this is what matters a lot
- 3:40for agentic coding, is for
- 3:41longer-running tasks. If we're using
- 3:44these open models to drive a larger
- 3:46harness, like my AI software factory,
- 3:48for example, that's where I see them
- 3:50disappoint time and time again. And I'll
- 3:51show you exactly how. So, what I have
- 3:53here is a large simplification of my AI
- 3:56software factory. This is generally what
- 3:58my AI coding workflow looks like,
- 4:00because I don't just open up Claude
- 4:02code, Kimiko, whatever, and send off a
- 4:04request. I have skills and rules that
- 4:06guide myself and my agent through the
- 4:08process of planning together,
- 4:10implementing based on that plan, and
- 4:11then having myself and another agent
- 4:13review and playtest to make sure we're
- 4:14confident for the merge. I do this for
- 4:16every bug fix and every new feature that
- 4:18I'm implementing. The problem here is
- 4:21there is a lot of opportunity for drift
- 4:23that comes naturally with any complex
- 4:25code base and larger process you're
- 4:27going to be working with. And this is
- 4:29where open models fall apart. Even
- 4:30Kimiko 3.1 Pro, which I keep referencing
- 4:33because it is really the latest and
- 4:34greatest open model. What it comes down
- 4:36to, I've kind of thought of a word for
- 4:38this. It's all about the attention. It
- 4:40seems like open models aren't able to
- 4:42pay attention to all of the rules and
- 4:45context it needs to be following when we
- 4:47have longer running processes. Like when
- 4:49I'm working with Opus 5.5, I have all my
- 4:52rules in a complex code base and it has
- 4:54to understand where to integrate things
- 4:56and what to review. It always just seems
- 4:58to get me and get the code base. Even
- 5:01when I have it running for a long time.
- 5:03But it's not the case with Kimiko. It
- 5:04does good for individual edits if I keep
- 5:06it very, very granular, but if I really
- 5:08try to expand the scope, it just starts
- 5:10to forget rules that I have for it in
- 5:12the code base. Like even the most basic
- 5:14things in my global rules, like don't
- 5:16touch the PRD, it's read only. I've had
- 5:18it try to do that. It makes that attempt
- 5:20quite a few times as I've done testing
- 5:22over the past couple of weeks. And it
- 5:24just constantly gets stuck because I
- 5:26have strict guidelines for what is
- 5:27allowed to merge in my code base. I have
- 5:30a pretty high bar that Kimiko seems to
- 5:32never really be able to reach without
- 5:34iterating over and over and over again.
- 5:35And that actually makes it so that
- 5:37Kimiko is even more expensive than
- 5:38Claude just because of how many tokens I
- 5:40have to spend fixing all the little
- 5:42problems that come up.
- 5:44And we can even see this play out when
- 5:45we look at the larger list of
- 5:46benchmarks, not just the ones that
- 5:48Kimiko wants you to see, like Terminal
- 5:50Bench 4.0. So yeah, definitely for some,
- 5:53Kimiko 3.1 and a lot of the other open
- 5:56models are better or on par than the
- 5:58frontier models. So, there's something
- 6:00to it. But if we look at the other
- 6:03benchmarks that are focused more on long
- 6:05horizon tasks like Terminal Bench
- 6:07Science, Frontier Code 2.0, there is a
- 6:09very very big difference. This is more
- 6:12in line with what I've seen with Kimmy K
- 6:143.1 Pro and the other open models
- 6:16seemingly falling flat on their face
- 6:18compared to the Frontier models like
- 6:19Gemini 4 Carbon and Claude Opus 5.5. And
- 6:23so for how I actually want to
- 6:25incorporate models in my agentic coding
- 6:27workflows, this is more my experience,
- 6:30not this as much as I wish Terminal
- 6:32Bench 4.0 was accurate for my work. Now,
- 6:35I also don't want you to be under the
- 6:37impression that Frontier models have
- 6:38totally solved long-running tasks.
- 6:41There's still a struggle there. I've
- 6:42seen this in a bunch of research
- 6:43including my own that Frontier models do
- 6:46still struggle on long horizon tasks.
- 6:49It's just they struggle a lot less than
- 6:51open models like GPT 5.6 Soul being at a
- 6:5441.6% in this study and then Kimmy K3
- 6:57only being at a 22.1%.
- 7:00That is a big difference. So we still
- 7:02need harness engineering as a whole. We
- 7:05need the guidance in the process for
- 7:07even the best models to get any kind of
- 7:09accuracy with these larger AI coding
- 7:11workflows, but even if we have a lot of
- 7:13that guidance and process set up, it
- 7:15still doesn't seem to help these open
- 7:17models nearly as much.
- 7:19The sponsor of today's video is
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- 8:32So, everything I've covered with you
- 8:33here is based on all my research and my
- 8:35experience doing a lot of comparing
- 8:37closed and open models over the course
- 8:40of this year. But, also, I want to make
- 8:42things interesting for you and really
- 8:43quantify what I'm seeing. And so, I put
- 8:46together a very controlled test using my
- 8:48AI software factory to build the exact
- 8:51same application with Claude, GPT-6, and
- 8:55Kimiko 3.1 Pro. And so, every single
- 8:57model here got its own AI software
- 8:59factory to build the exact same video
- 9:01game. I chose a video game because
- 9:03they're fun for me, nice to visualize
- 9:05for you, and I wanted something
- 9:06reasonably complex, not just a simple
- 9:08web app, so I can really push the limit
- 9:10of these models.
- 9:11So, the game that I built is called
- 9:13Northstar. I have my real factory
- 9:15building the full version of this right
- 9:16now, but this is the version that I
- 9:18built with Claude, using Opus 5.5 for
- 9:20the planning and reviewing, and Sonnet
- 9:225.5 for the builder, the kind of
- 9:25workhorse. And so, this is a very, very
- 9:28simplified version of the game because I
- 9:29just wanted to run about 12 laps in
- 9:32total of the factory. So, there's 12
- 9:34tickets that I built for this game. And
- 9:36it's pretty good overall. Like, this is
- 9:38a really solid with the physics. I mean,
- 9:39the combat is kind of silly with the
- 9:41animations. Like, my guy looks kind of
- 9:43bad here, but the full game loop is
- 9:45working here. This was built by Claude
- 9:47within my software factory.
- 9:49So, here's a version of the game built
- 9:50by GPT with 6 Astra for the planning and
- 9:53reviewing, and then the workhorse with
- 9:556.1 Soul. And so, the HUD looks pretty
- 9:58ugly here, but if we actually go into a
- 9:59raid, it looks good. So, of course,
- 10:01there's going to be little issues to fix
- 10:02with all of these proof of concepts
- 10:04because I didn't spend a ton of time on
- 10:06it, but this one had 11 tickets in total
- 10:08to get to a rat now. So, there's some
- 10:10hit boxes left over. It looks like some
- 10:12debugging things. So, it doesn't look as
- 10:14good as Claude. It also decided to do a
- 10:16much more zoomed out view. So, each one
- 10:17of my factories got the exact same
- 10:19starting point for the artwork, which is
- 10:21why it looks so similar. But again, like
- 10:23Claude, it did a pretty good job
- 10:24overall. My goal here was absolutely not
- 10:26to make a polished version of the game,
- 10:29but to run a bunch of tickets on a more
- 10:30complex code base just to get a feel for
- 10:33how well it was able to build out the
- 10:34features and test its work. And then
- 10:37finally, this is the game built by
- 10:38Kimmy, which has a much more zoomed out
- 10:40view like the one built by Claude. And
- 10:42then if I start a raid here, the UI
- 10:44actually looks kind of clean compared to
- 10:46Claude and GPT. I like it. But the
- 10:48problem is, and we'll get into this in a
- 10:50little bit, it didn't build nearly as
- 10:52much as far as the features in the game
- 10:54because it spent so much time fixing all
- 10:56these little things and iterating on
- 10:58each of the individual tickets. And so,
- 11:00for example, I don't really have time to
- 11:01show this here, but between raids
- 11:03there's a shop where you can upgrade
- 11:05your character with the Claude and Open
- 11:07AI versions, but Kimmy never got around
- 11:09to building that.
- 11:10So, I know this is kind of a silly
- 11:12example, and it is just one application,
- 11:14but I wanted to build something concrete
- 11:16to give you some tangible numbers here
- 11:18for what I've been seeing building
- 11:19dozens of applications with frontier and
- 11:21open models. And so, there's not a lot
- 11:23of data points as far as the sheer
- 11:25number of tickets, but I did spend tens
- 11:27of millions of tokens with all the
- 11:28testing I did here, really letting it
- 11:30iterate and struggle through things so I
- 11:32could get the real data. And this is in
- 11:34line with everything I've seen
- 11:35throughout this year. So, Claude did 12
- 11:38out of 12 tickets for the game in about
- 11:4014 hours. And so, each time it went
- 11:42through the full loop of the factory, it
- 11:43took about an hour, which is pretty good
- 11:46considering how big each ticket was, and
- 11:48it went through the full process of
- 11:49planning, building, reviewing, play
- 11:51testing, and merging. And then going to
- 11:53Open AI, it took twice the length and
- 11:56didn't even quite finish. It did 11 out
- 11:58of 12 tickets. And so, even between
- 12:00frontier models, there's a pretty big
- 12:01difference here. There's a reason why
- 12:03I'm using Claude Opus 5.5 to drive a lot
- 12:07of my agent coding workflows right now,
- 12:09pretty much all of them. But overall,
- 12:11the curve looks pretty solid between the
- 12:13two, right? Like it wasn't super stuck
- 12:14on anything, and the end result was
- 12:16pretty good. But, then when we get to
- 12:17Kimmy, look at this. There's a couple of
- 12:20points where it stalled for hours and
- 12:22hours, and only got through five out of
- 12:2312 tickets in 44 hours, which is why I
- 12:26didn't have things like the shop at the
- 12:28end of the raid. It just got so stuck
- 12:31iterating in all these little things
- 12:32that came up. It was so frustrating
- 12:34because it would constantly try to do
- 12:35things that the rules told it not to,
- 12:37and so that's why the reviews would
- 12:39catch it, and then it would have to
- 12:40iterate. It was just constantly not
- 12:42obeying everything that the factory had
- 12:44for it. Now, I got to say, maybe I could
- 12:46change the factory to be a bit more
- 12:48lenient, let some of these minor issues
- 12:50in so that at least Kimmy would look
- 12:51closer to Claude and GPT. But, I want to
- 12:55keep my entire review process. I've
- 12:57spent so much time refining this in my
- 12:59AI software factory over time that I
- 13:01don't want to have to conform to weaker
- 13:03models just so that more things go
- 13:05through. When I switch between frontier
- 13:07models, they all seem to just get my
- 13:09factory, get my codebase, and my rules,
- 13:11but open models, it really does seem
- 13:13like a true flaw where for these longer
- 13:15running tasks, they just aren't able to
- 13:17juggle and pay attention to everything
- 13:19they need to.
- 13:20I also have some more interesting
- 13:22numbers to show you. At least I find
- 13:23this fascinating. So, the total cost of
- 13:25building everything here with all 12
- 13:27tickets with Claude was $255.
- 13:30Now, obviously I use my subscription for
- 13:32everything here. This is just what it
- 13:33would have been with API costs, which is
- 13:36really the only thing that I can truly
- 13:37quantify.
- 13:38And so, that's pretty good overall. With
- 13:41GPT, it was $635.
- 13:43It didn't even fully finish. It ran for
- 13:46twice the length, but it was actually
- 13:47more than twice as expensive as well.
- 13:50Pretty interesting. And then with Kimmy,
- 13:52it was $180, which really isn't cheaper
- 13:55than Claude because it didn't actually
- 13:57finish everything. And so, that's the
- 13:59thing. Just because a model is cheaper,
- 14:01doesn't mean that it's actually cheaper
- 14:03per task because it has to iterate more.
- 14:05If it's failing more often, it can even
- 14:07become more expensive. That's what I see
- 14:09with these open weight models a lot of
- 14:11times in my coding workflows. And we can
- 14:13see this with the very next row. Claude
- 14:15was $21 per ticket, GPT 63, and Kimmy
- 14:18almost $36 for every single ticket. And
- 14:21also, I had to intervene a lot less when
- 14:23I had Claude running the factory. So, I
- 14:25also have a part of the system here
- 14:27where I basically have a manager over
- 14:29the entire workflow that alerts me when
- 14:30there are uncertainties that need my
- 14:32decision. Or at least the manager would
- 14:34decide for me. And so, with that, Claude
- 14:37most of the time is able to go through
- 14:38things very smoothly. OpenAI, generally
- 14:41about once per ticket, it would bring
- 14:42one thing to my attention. But Kimmy
- 14:44needed help for a couple of different
- 14:46instances every single ticket it was
- 14:48creating. And that also was pretty
- 14:49frustrating for me. Claude is just able
- 14:51to be a lot more autonomous overall. It
- 14:54has a lot more confidence in its
- 14:56implementations, which seems warranted
- 14:58as well. Right? Like we don't want
- 15:00unwarranted confidence where it's just
- 15:01making a ton of mistakes, but Claude is
- 15:03solid and it knows it is. And then the
- 15:05last interesting thing here is I had a
- 15:07separate agent do a blind code review of
- 15:09the whole code base. Claude got an eight
- 15:11out of 10, and GPT a seven out of 10,
- 15:13and Kimmy a six out of 10. And a six out
- 15:15of 10 is okay. I mean, Kimmy got to
- 15:18something decent eventually. It was just
- 15:19pretty painful to get there.
- 15:21Okay, so at this point we have covered
- 15:23the problem in a lot of detail. We know
- 15:25why we can't just hand our
- 15:27longer-running agentic coding workflows
- 15:28over to a cheaper open model. Even if we
- 15:31let it iterate a lot, it ends up getting
- 15:33even more expensive than just having
- 15:35Claude handle our software factory, our
- 15:37coding workflow, whatever. And it's
- 15:38going to be a lot more reliable. So,
- 15:40with that, let's talk about the
- 15:41solution, or at least what I'm doing
- 15:43right now. The eventual goal, at least
- 15:45for me, is to get to the point where I
- 15:47can use open models for everything. And
- 15:49I firmly believe that in the future
- 15:51we're going to get there. We're not
- 15:52going to be locked into using frontier
- 15:54models for anything if we don't want.
- 15:56It's just like we can see we're not
- 15:58there yet. But that also doesn't mean
- 16:01that I have to ditch the idea of using
- 16:03open models altogether in my agentic
- 16:05coding workflows. Something I've been
- 16:07experimenting with a lot this year is
- 16:09mixing models and providers, using the
- 16:12right model for the right task depending
- 16:14on how much it costs and how good it is.
- 16:17And so, for example, using Opus for the
- 16:20planning and reviewing in my larger
- 16:21agentic coding workflow, and then using
- 16:23Kimmy as the workhorse. And these kinds
- 16:26of combinations have worked really well
- 16:28for me. Now, I'll have to put out more
- 16:30content where I really show you how to
- 16:31set up this harness. And there is a
- 16:33video I'll link to right here on my
- 16:34channel where I get into these numbers
- 16:35in a lot more detail. But at a high
- 16:37level right now, I just want to show you
- 16:39what it looks like to mix models and how
- 16:41we really don't have to sacrifice the
- 16:42reliability of the code to get a lot of
- 16:45cost and time savings. And so, what I
- 16:47did with this test is I had a control
- 16:50group where I had a lot of agentic
- 16:52coding workflows that I ran through Opus
- 16:54for everything. It did all of the
- 16:55planning, implementing, and reviewing.
- 16:58And then for my other test, I had Opus
- 17:00do the reviewing and the planning, but
- 17:03Kimmy was the workhorse that did the
- 17:04implementation, which is where a lot of
- 17:06my tokens go. And what I found is the
- 17:08results were pretty equivalent between
- 17:10these two groups, which is incredible
- 17:11cuz we look at the cost here. For simple
- 17:14tasks, it was really cheap between but
- 17:16for more complicated tasks, it was more
- 17:18than twice the cost using Opus for
- 17:20literally everything, even though the
- 17:22results were pretty equivalent both for
- 17:24simple and complex tickets that I had it
- 17:26implement. This is crazy. It all comes
- 17:28down to the fact that if we use the more
- 17:30powerful model for the planning, that's
- 17:32where we need to load in all the context
- 17:34and follow all the rules. So, if we
- 17:35scope that down into a plan document,
- 17:38our weaker but still pretty capable
- 17:39model is able to execute on that very
- 17:41well. This is the solution right now. We
- 17:44can still use open weight models, just
- 17:46not for everything in our larger
- 17:48workflows. So, that's my main
- 17:49recommendation right now. If you want to
- 17:51save on tokens, make your workflows
- 17:53faster, experiment with open models, use
- 17:55them for the workhorse that always
- 17:57writes the code, but then you just
- 17:59sandwich that with the planning and
- 18:00reviewing that uses a frontier model.
- 18:03And exactly how you set that up is going
- 18:05to be a lot more content I put out soon
- 18:07where I cover that. So, also let me know
- 18:08in the comments what part of this you're
- 18:10interested in. Like, do you want me to
- 18:11show more data? Do you want me to show
- 18:12you how to really set up these systems?
- 18:14I'd be curious what you're looking for.
- 18:16And so, I hope that you appreciate this
- 18:18overall. The problem with open models,
- 18:20getting into the solution, a lot more I
- 18:21want to do on this soon. If you
- 18:23appreciated this and you're looking
- 18:24forward to more videos on agentic
- 18:26engineering, open weight models, I would
- 18:28really appreciate a like and a
- 18:29subscribe. And with that, I will see you
- 18:31in the next video.
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This page contains the full transcript of I REALLY Want Open Models to Win, But They Just Don't Cut It (Yet) by Cole Medin, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 4,013 words across 560 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.
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