Field Guide · Week of 17 August 2026
Phi-4
Microsoft · United States · Microsoft
Small, sharp, MIT-licensed. Strong at exams and short reasoning. Less warm as a letter-writer.
- Where it runs
- Runs on your computer
- Memory
- 12–16 GB (4-bit)
- Size
- 14B dense
- License
- MIT
Why it is on this week’s list
The cleanest US license on a model that still thinks. Good second model next to Gemma.
Use it when
Math, code snippets, tight answers on 16 GB.
Skip it when
Long, human letters — Gemma or Qwen will sound more like you.
Published scores
Scores as of 17 August 2026. A blank test is not a zero. We just will not invent it.
- GPQA Diamond
- 56.1*
- SWE-Bench Verified
- —
- LiveCodeBench
- —
- MMLU / MMLU-Pro
- 84.8*
- AIME
- —
- Humanity’s Last Exam
- —
Microsoft Phi-4 card · 2025-01
Older card. Still the honest public number.
No public number we will stand behind.
No public number we will stand behind.
Microsoft Phi-4 card · 2025-01
No public number we will stand behind.
No public number we will stand behind.