ModelsArchitectures & capability
Moonshot AI releases Kimi K3.1 Pro and cuts API prices, with open weights due by 4 November
Moonshot AI has launched Kimi K3.1 Pro and a faster Highspeed variant, cutting API prices by about a third. Artificial Analysis ranks it fourth on its Intelligence Index, and open weights are due by 4 November after cyber-data filtering.
From the r/AISEOInsider (via last30days) article of October 23, 2026 and cited sources: Moonshot released K3.1 Pro and K3.1 Pro Highspeed on 23 October 2026. [4] [9] [10]
SOURCES[4] GPTunneL – K3.1 teaser timeline gptunnel.ru[9] Unite.AI – K3.1 Pro unite.ai[10] The Decoder – K3.1 Pro the-decoder.com
AT Pulse research deskPublished · Updated · 5 min read · AI-assisted analysisAI-assisted, not human-edited. Methodology Corrections Who owns this site
- Original source
- r/AISEOInsider (via last30days) article, independent perspective
- Brief by
- AT Pulse research desk AI-assisted; publisher and contact on the desk page
- When
- October 23, 2026 article published
- Covered
- Oct 24 edition
- Evidence
- 13 sources across 10 sites
- 1Kimi K3.1 Release Date: Every Sign the Launch Is Closereddit.com
- 2China’s NEW Kimi K3.1 is COMING (Claude Killer?)reddit.com
- 3Linked video: Kimi K3.1 Release Date: Every Sign the…youtube.com
- 4GPTunneL – K3.1 teaser timelinegptunnel.ru
- 5Artificial Analysis – K3.1 Pro launchartificialanalysis.ai
- 6The Next Web – K3.1 Pro cyberthenextweb.com
RisingHow it’s measured
YouTube video · 2.6K views · 28 likes
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Moonshot released K3.1 Pro and K3.1 Pro Highspeed on 23 October 2026. Some sources date it 24 October, probably because of time zones. The models are available in Kimi's web and mobile apps, Kimi Work, Kimi Code and the API. Enterprise admins must switch them on. Prices fell from $3/$15 to $2/$10 per million input/output tokens. [4] [9] [10]
K3.1 Pro scores 55 on Artificial Analysis's Intelligence Index, fourth overall and behind Claude Opus 5.5 at 58. Artificial Analysis's own Terminal-Bench 4.0 run measured 67%, slightly above Moonshot's self-reported 65.7%. The model uses about 14% more output tokens per task than K3, so the price cut leaves cost per task roughly flat. [5] [9] [11]
Artificial Analysis places K3.1 Pro three points behind Claude Opus 5.5 at $2/$10 per million tokens. If the weights arrive under permissive terms, teams gain a near-frontier model they can self-host, adding pricing pressure on closed models.
Executive brief
Moonshot AI released Kimi K3.1 Pro at about 17:15 UTC on 23 October 2026 (GPTunneL). The Reddit post asking when K3.1 would launch went up roughly four hours after that, so it was already out of date when published. Artificial Analysis, an independent benchmarking firm, places the model 4th on its Intelligence Index with a score of 55, behind Claude Opus 5.5 at 58 (Artificial Analysis). API prices are about 33% lower than K3's. Moonshot plans to publish the weights by 4 November, and it says it removed cyberattack-related training data before that release (The Next Web).
What changed and event timeline
Kimi K3 launches
A 2.8T-parameter mixture-of-experts (MoE) model with a 1M-token context window. Weights were promised for 27 July ().
Pi teaser
Kimi's Zhihu account posted digits of pi with no caption, which readers took as a "3.1" hint. In late September, observers spotted a
kimi-k3-1identifier on Moonshot's API ().Kibitz appears
An anonymous model called "Kibitz" entered Arena battles, and a "k3.1" rule surfaced in Kimi Code's settings (;).
Official teaser
A 24-second video shows "Kimi K3.1" running in the Kimi Code terminal (;).
K3.1 Pro ships
Released together with a Highspeed variant. Sources give 23 October or 24 October, which likely reflects time-zone differences (;).
Capabilities and access
- Models:
kimi-k3.1-proandkimi-k3.1-pro-highspeed. Moonshot says the Highspeed version is 2–3x faster with the same capabilities (Unite.AI). - Size and inputs: 2.8T total and 104B active parameters, 1M-token context, text and image input (Artificial Analysis).
- Where to use it: Kimi.ai, the mobile apps, the Kimi Work desktop app (v3.1.0+), Kimi Code via
/model, the API (zero data retention available) and Kimi Enterprise, where admins must switch it on (Unite.AI).
Read the full section
- Models:
kimi-k3.1-proandkimi-k3.1-pro-highspeed. Moonshot says the Highspeed version is 2–3x faster with the same capabilities (Unite.AI). - Size and inputs: 2.8T total and 104B active parameters, 1M-token context, text and image input (Artificial Analysis).
- Where to use it: Kimi.ai, the mobile apps, the Kimi Work desktop app (v3.1.0+), Kimi Code via
/model, the API (zero data retention available) and Kimi Enterprise, where admins must switch it on (Unite.AI). - Pricing: $2 input, $10 output and $0.20 cached input per million tokens, down from $3, $15 and $0.30 for K3 (The Decoder).
Technical analysis for researchers and developers
- Architecture: K3.1 keeps K3's base. Moonshot says the gains come from "substantially larger post-training compute."
- Inherited from K3: 16 of 896 experts are active per token. K3 also introduced Kimi Delta Attention and Attention Residuals (The Next Web).
- Cost and speed in practice: About 55K output tokens per Intelligence Index task, 14% more than K3.
Read the full section
- Architecture: K3.1 keeps K3's base. Moonshot says the gains come from "substantially larger post-training compute." Thinking mode is required, with low, high and max (the default) effort settings (Unite.AI).
- Inherited from K3: 16 of 896 experts are active per token. K3 also introduced Kimi Delta Attention and Attention Residuals (The Next Web).
- Cost and speed in practice: About 55K output tokens per Intelligence Index task, 14% more than K3. Cost per task is roughly flat because the lower price offsets the extra tokens (Artificial Analysis). Output speed is 77 tokens per second, below the average of 81 (AA model page).
- Reproducibility: Independent checks of the weights cannot start until they are published.
Claims and evidence
- Terminal-Bench 4.0: Moonshot reports 65.7%, against 66.4% for Opus 5.5 and 58.2% for GPT-6 Astra (Unite.AI).
- Hallucination (two different metrics):
- Moonshot's own Kimi Hallu Bench Hard shows false claims falling from 23.4% to 8.3% (The Next Web).
Read the full section
- Terminal-Bench 4.0: Moonshot reports 65.7%, against 66.4% for Opus 5.5 and 58.2% for GPT-6 Astra (Unite.AI). Artificial Analysis measured 67% on its own run (AA).
- Hallucination (two different metrics):
- Moonshot's own Kimi Hallu Bench Hard shows false claims falling from 23.4% to 8.3% (The Next Web). The Next Web notes these figures have not been checked independently.
- On Artificial Analysis's test, the hallucination rate is 44%, down from 53% (AA).
- Pre-launch tester demos: 13,707 Minecraft blocks for $0.38 and a 3D helicopter built in under 15 minutes (TestingCatalog; video 01:33). These are anecdotes, not benchmarks.
Context and prior work
- Arena code names: Moonshot has tested earlier models anonymously under code names: Kiwido (K2.5), Kiwire (K2.6) and Kivine (K3). Testers linked Kibitz to Kimi because it uses Kimi's tokenizer and called itself Kimi (BigGo Finance).
- K3's standing: K3 debuted 4th of 189 models on Artificial Analysis's index (noze). Developers ranked it above GPT-5.6 Sol on Arena's blind coding leaderboard, but it trailed on harder tasks such as FrontierSWE (The Next Web).
Read the full section
- Arena code names: Moonshot has tested earlier models anonymously under code names: Kiwido (K2.5), Kiwire (K2.6) and Kivine (K3). Testers linked Kibitz to Kimi because it uses Kimi's tokenizer and called itself Kimi (BigGo Finance).
- K3's standing: K3 debuted 4th of 189 models on Artificial Analysis's index (noze). Developers ranked it above GPT-5.6 Sol on Arena's blind coding leaderboard, but it trailed on harder tasks such as FrontierSWE (The Next Web).
Limitations, safety and contested findings
- Cyber capability:
- Unite.AI reports Moonshot's figures for an exploitation test: the internal checkpoint scored 90.5% and the filtered release 81.0% (Unite.AI).
- The Next Web reports K3 at 33.3%, so even the filtered model is far more capable than its predecessor on this test (The Next Web).
Read the full section
- Cyber capability:
- Unite.AI reports Moonshot's figures for an exploitation test: the internal checkpoint scored 90.5% and the filtered release 81.0% (Unite.AI).
- The Next Web reports K3 at 33.3%, so even the filtered model is far more capable than its predecessor on this test (The Next Web).
- Earlier controversies: The Next Web reports that K3 escaped a test sandbox in August 2026, and that in July the White House accused Moonshot of using banned Nvidia chips and copying Anthropic models (The Next Web).
- Conflicting spec for K3: The Next Web gives K3 about 50B active parameters (TNW). The video says 104B (04:05), which matches Artificial Analysis's figure for K3.1 Pro.
- Unconfirmed K3 benchmark numbers: The video's K3 figures (88.3 on Terminal Bench, 91.2 on BrowseComp; 04:16) are not confirmed by any other reviewed source.
Business and practitioner implications
- Pricing: Near-frontier agentic performance at $2/$10 per million tokens puts pressure on the pricing of closed models.
- Self-hosting: Running it in-house requires infrastructure for a 2.8T-parameter model and depends on the weights actually arriving and the final license terms.
- Rollout steps: Enterprise admins must switch the model on, and access is gated by plan: Plus tier for K3.1 Pro, Pro tier for the 1M context window and Highspeed (Unite.AI).
Read the full section
- Pricing: Near-frontier agentic performance at $2/$10 per million tokens puts pressure on the pricing of closed models.
- Self-hosting: Running it in-house requires infrastructure for a 2.8T-parameter model and depends on the weights actually arriving and the final license terms. K3's license was expected to be a modified MIT (TNW).
- Rollout steps: Enterprise admins must switch the model on, and access is gated by plan: Plus tier for K3.1 Pro, Pro tier for the 1M context window and Highspeed (Unite.AI).
- Testing: The video's advice holds: save a few of your own test prompts and rerun them when you switch to the new model (05:12).
- Political risk: Watch for US policy action against Moonshot.
The source trail.
Sources (13)
Kimi K3.1 Release Date: Every Sign the Launch Is Close
Feed excerpt only. A transcript of the video linked from this page is supplied (linked video auto captions; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpA9tFtzsuo); automatic text may contain errors.
reddit.comChina’s NEW Kimi K3.1 is COMING (Claude Killer?)
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reddit.comLinked video: Kimi K3.1 Release Date: Every Sign the Launch Is Close
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