Multimodal LLM Comparison 2026: Vision, Audio, and Beyond

Quick answer: For image understanding and document analysis, Claude Sonnet 4 and GPT-4o are the top performers. For native image generation, GPT-4o with DALL-E 3 integration leads. For video understanding, Gemini 2.0/2.5 is significantly ahead of competitors. For audio input, GPT-4o and Gemini are the main options.

Vision: Image Understanding

All three frontier providers support image input. Performance comparison:

GPT-4o:

• Supports: JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP
• Max image size: 20MB; API auto-resizes larger images
• Strengths: OCR accuracy, chart/graph interpretation, general object recognition
• Pricing: Standard input token pricing (~1,000 tokens per image depending on size)

Claude Sonnet 4:

• Supports: JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP
• Max: 20MB per image, 100 images per request
• Strengths: Document layout understanding, complex diagram interpretation, extracting structured data from images
• Pricing: Same input token pricing as text

Gemini 2.5 Pro:

• Supports: JPEG, PNG, WebP, BMP, and more
• Strengths: Multi-image reasoning, chart analysis, very large document handling
• Video: Also supports video input (unique among these three)

Document Analysis

A key practical use case: extracting structured data from PDFs, invoices, forms, and scanned documents.

All three models handle this, but the approaches differ:

Best for high-accuracy extraction (Claude Sonnet 4):

response = client.messages.create(
    model="claude-sonnet-4",
    max_tokens=2048,
    messages=[{
        "role": "user",
        "content": [
            {"type": "image", "source": {"type": "base64", "media_type": "image/png", "data": invoice_b64}},
            {"type": "text", "text": "Extract: vendor name, invoice number, date, line items, total. Return JSON."}
        ]
    }]
)

Best for multi-page documents (Gemini 2.5 Pro): Can process entire PDFs as video frames or via the Files API, handling documents that span hundreds of pages.

Native Image Generation

GPT-4o + DALL-E 3: The most mature integration. GPT-4o can generate images natively through the API, with strong adherence to detailed prompts.

response = client.images.generate(
    model="dall-e-3",
    prompt="A minimalist office with natural light, 4K, photorealistic",
    size="1024x1024",
    quality="standard",
    n=1,
)
image_url = response.data[0].url

Pricing: $0.04/image (standard 1024×1024), $0.08 (HD)

Claude: No native image generation as of April 2026. Text-and-image input only.

Gemini 2.0 Flash: Can generate images through the responseModalities parameter.

See best LLMs for image generation for the full ranked comparison.

Audio

GPT-4o Audio: Processes audio input directly. Can handle speech, music recognition, and speech-to-text with context understanding.

Gemini 2.0 Flash / 2.5 Pro: Native audio understanding — one of Gemini's unique advantages. Supports speaker diarization, multi-speaker conversations.

Claude: Audio input not natively supported as of April 2026. Use Whisper for transcription first, then pass text to Claude.

Video Understanding

Gemini 2.5 Pro: Clear leader. Can process video files directly, understand temporal sequences, and answer questions about events at specific timestamps.

GPT-4o: Limited video support — processes as image frames, not native video understanding.

Claude: No video input support as of April 2026.

Multimodal use case matrix

For live pricing on multimodal models, use the LLMversus cost calculator.