The Minimum Viable Model: Why Enterprise AI Should Stop Chasing the Frontier

Wed, 19 Aug 2026 11:00:00 +1000

Lately, much of the AI conversation has revolved around one question:

What is the best model?

GPT, Claude, Gemini, Chinese models… Every few months there is another release, another benchmark, another leaderboard and another model claiming the frontier.

Enterprises increasingly need to ask a different question:

What is the smallest, fastest and most economical model that can reliably solve this particular problem?

The other day I heard the term Minimum Viable Model, or MVM.

FinOps on Daniel Andrade

The Minimum Viable Model: Why Enterprise AI Should Stop Chasing the Frontier