Sergey Diakov
⬤ xAI just made a big leap in the AI coding race. Its Grok models now hold the top two spots on OpenRouter's Programming Use Case Leaderboard, with Grok Code Fast 1 at No.1 and Grok 4.1 Fast right behind at No.2. It's the first time both leading positions belong to the same company, and it's turning heads in the developer community.
⬤ The numbers tell the story. Grok Code Fast 1 processed 44.2 billion tokens, making up 15.3% of all activity on the platform. Grok 4.1 Fast isn't far behind with 35.7 billion tokens and 12.3% share. That puts xAI ahead of some heavy hitters—Google's Gemini 2.5 Flash sits at 18.4 billion tokens, Gemini 3 Pro Preview at 10.9 billion, and Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 4.5 at 18.1 billion. Usage charts show xAI's share climbing steadily through late October and November, eating into territory previously dominated by competitors.
⬤ OpenRouter tracks how developers actually use these models for real work—mainly Python and JavaScript tasks where speed and accuracy matter most. The fact that Grok models are gaining ground so quickly suggests they're delivering what coders need: fast execution, reliable output, and solid performance on everyday programming challenges. Developers working on automation, debugging, or rapid prototyping seem to be gravitating toward xAI's tools.
⬤ This shake-up shows how fast things move in the AI world. Models that dominate one month can lose ground the next if a competitor releases something faster or more capable. With xAI, Google, and Anthropic all pushing hard on specialized coding performance, the leaderboard rankings are becoming a real-time scoreboard of who's winning the developer mindshare battle. And right now, xAI is having its moment.
Sergey Diakov
