MiniMax M3.1 Flash targets agents with 70% lower usage costs
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MiniMax has launched M3.1 Flash as an open-weight multimodal model for agentic work, coding, computer use and cybersecurity, claiming nearly three-times-faster online inference and 70% lower usage costs. Vercel is making it available through AI Gateway without a provider account until October 22, adding fallbacks, spend tracking and request traces, but the free rate applies only while MiniMax serves the request and pinned requests use standard pricing afterward.
- MiniMax reports scores of 76.2 on BankerToolBench and 73.7% on DeepSWE v1.1, positioning M3.1 Flash for multi-step enterprise workflows and software engineering.
- M3.1 Flash has a 1M-token context window for long documents and multi-step agent sessions, and supports coding-agent integrations through AI Gateway.
- Vercel supports the model through one API key and exposes it through the AI SDK, Chat Completions, Responses and Anthropic Messages APIs.
Bottom line If you are evaluating lower-cost agent execution, test M3.1 Flash before October 22 and measure end-to-end spend rather than token pricing alone.
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