Breaking

Inkling from Thinking Machines Enters Agent Arena Leaderboard as Top US Open-Weight Model

July 20, 2026 at 15:02 EDT

Foundation Models
AI Agents
Open Source

Inkling, a model from Thinking Machines, has made its debut on the Agent Arena leaderboard, ranking 9th among open-weight models and 30th overall. The result positions it as the strongest open model from the United States for agentic, long-running tasks.

Agent Arena Debut · Thinking Machines

Inkling arrives as the strongest US open-weight model for agentic tasks

Thinking Machines' Inkling debuts on the Agent Arena leaderboard — the only US-built model in the open field's top 10, in a space long dominated by models from outside the United States.

Rank among open-weight models

#30

Rank on the combined leaderboard

Highest-placed US open model

Where Inkling stands among open-weight models (top 10)

Column height = ranking position — the shorter Inkling's column, the higher its place

#1–8

INKLING
US · open

Inkling

#10

The one US-developed model inside the open-weight top 10 — a field where American labs have more often favored closed, proprietary systems.

What Agent Arena measures

Long-running "agentic" work — not one-shot answers, but multi-step processes sustained over time.

Planning

→

Tool use

→

Multi-step execution

→

Sustained coherence

The advance

A competitive US open-weight entry for autonomous, long-horizon work — a meaningful marker for the domestic open-model ecosystem and for Thinking Machines.

The reality check

At #30 overall, open-weight models still trail leading proprietary systems on aggregate agentic performance — and the field may reshuffle as new entries arrive.

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