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GigaChat Ultra Thinking: Thinks Longer – Answers Worse?

7 min read

GigaChat Ultra Thinking takes longer to think and uses more compute. It solves management tasks 3.3% worse than the version without reasoning. This is not a bug or a fluke – it’s a pattern documented in academic papers over the past two years.

This week, Sber unveiled GigaChat Ultra – a new flagship model with a reasoning mode (Thinking). The model is available for free via web, mobile apps, and a Telegram bot. We immediately added both variants to our AI model research for managers: ran them through all 32 scenarios using our unified methodology, scored them with both LLM judges, and compared against the other 52 models.

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GigaChat Ultra Thinking: Thinks Longer – Answers Worse?
GigaChat in 2026: Honest Review – Is It Worth Using for Work?
8 min

GigaChat in 2026: Honest Review – Is It Worth Using for Work?

GigaChat is a generative AI model from Sber – Russia’s largest bank and technology conglomerate (comparable to a combination of Chase, Google, and Amazon in the Russian market). GigaChat is built specifically for Russian-language audiences and trained on Russian data, with deep understanding of cultural context, slang, and the nuances of the Russian language. It works without a VPN from Russia and CIS countries.