Inkling Small: the open model that listens
It's not the smartest in its class. It's the one that understands audio, image, video, and text all at once.
Thinking Machines — a lab founded by OpenAI's former CTO — released Inkling Small, a reduced version of the Inkling launched the week before.
It's an omnimodal model: it understands text, audio, image, and video in the same model. It's about a quarter the size of the original, which still leaves it at 276 billion total parameters, with 12 billion active per use.
Why this matters
- Audio is the modality where open models usually underperform — and it's exactly where this one stands out.
+ 2 points on paid plans.
Spec sheet
- License
- Aberto, no Hugging Face
- Parameters
- 276 B totais / 12 B ativos
- Formats
- Text, audio, image, and video
- Size
- 532 GB
- Position
- 1 ponto abaixo do Inkling completo
The microcourse
1.Be honest about where it loses
2 minThe source doesn't sell the model as an overall champion, and it's worth repeating the caveat:
In terms of intelligence, the Inkling Small isn't the best, but I like its multimodal capabilities.
In comparisons with DeepSeek V4 Flash, Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite, and GPT 5.6 Luna, it holds its own — but it trails other open models of similar size in pure intelligence. The advantage shows up when audio enters the picture: that's where the others can't keep up.
- When this model is the right choice2 min
- The cost of running2 min
Faltam 2 classes para você concluir
You're looking at the tool's profile — what it is and what it doesn't do. The step-by-step, selection criteria, and what to do with it are in the microcourse, and the full microcourse is from Expert.
- Freeyour planOpening of the 1st lesson
- Explorer1st full lesson + limitations
- ProfessionalAll lessons + who it's for
- ExpertFicha completa + site oficial da ferramenta
O Explorer (R$ 57/mês) abre 2 of 3 lessons. Only Expert unlocks all of them — and it applies to every microcourse in the section.
How we verified
We track releases straight from primary sources, transcribe what's demonstrated, verify every name and number against the manufacturer's official documentation, and rewrite it in Portuguese — along with the tool's limitations, which is the part the announcement leaves out.
The official address of Inkling Small opens on the Expert plan