The Model Adoption Briefing
The free monthly read on where AI demand actually flows. Five conclusions and the market snapshot - the full report goes deeper.
Executive summary
Five conclusions, three minutes. What changed across model routing, economics and the European picture in September 2026.
- Asia holds the lead at 62.1% of routed tokens (+2.1 pp over four weeks) - the concentration of demand by region of origin is not easing.
- Z.ai GLM 5.3 was the month's biggest climber, up 41 places to #12.
- 13 tracked model(s) cut price this month, extending the cost gap between low-cost challengers and premium frontier models.
- 10 new model(s) entered the ranking, led by Z.ai GLM 5.3 Flash.
- Europe remains marginal at 0.00% of routed traffic; the regulatory picture is tracked in Europe Watch below.
Market snapshot
Regional share of routed tokens
| Region | Share | 4-week change |
|---|---|---|
| Asia | 62.08% | ▲ +2.13 pp |
| US | 31.65% | ▼ -1.97 pp |
| Other | 6.27% | ▼ -0.11 pp |
| Europe | 0.00% | ▼ -0.05 pp |
Region reflects where each model's developer is headquartered.
The month's biggest climbers
- Z.ai GLM 5.3 #12 +41 places
- MiniMax M3 (free) #8 +36 places
- Z.ai GLM 5.3 Flash #2 +35 places
Top three of the full top-25 movement table in the report.
The same standard coding-agent workload runs from $2.52/month on the cheapest paid model (Upstage Solar Pro4) to $261 on Moonshot Kimi K3 - a 104x spread for comparable work. The full report breaks down the economics model by model.
Inside the full report
- The complete top-25 ranking, with the data-derived reason behind every move
- Provider intelligence: best mover, new models and cheapest endpoint, per developer
- Economics: best value, most expensive, and the full cost spread for the same workload
- Enterprise Watch: availability, open weights and longest context
- Europe Watch: routed share plus EU AI Act and Digital Product Passport signals
- Emerging models and the month's forward signals
- The downloadable PDF edition and the full report archive
The full Model Adoption Report goes deeper: the complete top-25 with the reason behind every move, provider-by-provider intelligence, the economics of running each model, Enterprise and Europe Watch, emerging challengers, and the month's forward signals.