# Frontier Model

> A frontier model is one of the most capable AI models available — the leading edge from labs like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google, defining the state of the art.

**A frontier model is a model at the leading edge of AI capability — the most advanced systems available at a given time, typically the flagship releases of the major labs.**

The term does real work in two registers. **Practically**, it names the top tier in every engineering decision: frontier models handle the hardest reasoning, longest agentic runs, and most open-ended work — at premium [token](/glossary/llm-token) prices — while cheaper tiers absorb everything that doesn't need them ([the tiering discipline](/guides/getting-started/choosing-the-right-model)). **In policy and safety**, "frontier" designates the models whose novel capabilities carry novel risks — the subject of frontier-safety frameworks, evaluations, and commitments from the labs.

The edge moves constantly: yesterday's frontier is today's workhorse and next year's budget tier, which is why durable engineering treats model choice as a [swappable decision](/guides/prompting/claude-vs-gpt-vs-gemini-coding) and benchmarks on its own tasks rather than memorizing a leaderboard. Contrast [small language models](/glossary/small-language-model) — the deliberately-compact opposite end — and [open-weights](/glossary/open-weights) releases, which increasingly shadow the frontier from a release cycle behind.

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_Source: https://agentscamp.com/glossary/frontier-model — Term on AgentsCamp._