What are AI reasoning models?

Reasoning models, a new development in AI, are designed to handle tasks requiring logical reasoning, math, science, and coding more effectively than regular large language models (LLMs) by employing a technique known as Chain of Thought (CoT) reasoning. Unlike regular LLMs, which often default to the most obvious answers based on their training, reasoning models are trained to think through prompts, providing more considered responses, although this process can be slower and more resource-intensive. Companies like OpenAI, DeepSeek, Google, Anthropic, and xAI have introduced reasoning models, with OpenAI's o1 and o3-mini being among the first publicly released. These models, while lacking some multimodal features and being more costly, show promise in tasks that benefit from their step-by-step processing capabilities. The future may lie in combined models that can dynamically switch between reasoning and regular processing based on the task's complexity, offering a balanced approach to performance and cost.