In November 2025, AI models are no longer limited to text. GPT-4o processes images and audio, Gemini 2.5 Pro handles video understanding, and Claude Opus 4.1 excels at document analysis with embedded visuals. These multimodal capabilities enable entirely new application categories: AI assistants that understand screenshots, document analyzers that parse charts and tables, customer support bots that process product images, and video analysis tools that understand context across visual and audio channels.
Here's what each major model supports:
GPT-4o provides excellent image understanding with support for multiple images per request:
GPT-4o can transcribe and analyze audio directly without separate Whisper API calls:
Claude Opus 4.1 excels at understanding documents with complex layouts, tables, and charts:
Gemini 2.5 Pro is the only model with native video understanding (up to 60 minutes):
Here are real-world multimodal applications we've built:
- **Choose detail level wisely**: GPT-4o's `detail="low"` is 4.5x cheaper, use for simple images
- **Batch when possible**: Process multiple images in one request to save API calls
- **Consider cost**: Images add significant token overhead (170-1500 tokens each)
- **Claude for documents**: Use Claude Opus 4.1 for complex tables, financial docs, contracts
- **Gemini for video**: Only option for native video understanding
- **Compress images**: Reduce file size before upload to save bandwidth and costs
- **Cache results**: Store analysis results for identical/similar images
- **Set timeouts**: Video processing can take minutes, configure appropriate timeouts
Multimodal AI in November 2025 enables applications that were impossible just a year ago. GPT-4o's audio understanding eliminates the need for separate transcription pipelines. Claude Opus 4.1's document analysis extracts structured data from complex financial reports. Gemini 2.5 Pro's video understanding opens entirely new use cases in content moderation, training, and security.
The key is matching model capabilities to your use case: GPT-4o for general images and audio, Claude for complex documents, and Gemini for video. With intelligent routing and caching, multimodal AI becomes cost-effective even at scale.