Software:LMArena
Arena (formerly LMArena and Chatbot Arena) is a public, web-based platform that evaluates large language models (LLMs). Users enter prompts for two anonymous models to respond to and vote on the model that gave the better response, after which the models' identities are revealed. Users can also choose models to test themselves via the "Direct" selection.[1][2]
Companies which have supplied the company with their large language models include OpenAI, Google DeepMind,[3] and Anthropic.[4]
The website has been used for preview releases of upcoming models. Chinese company DeepSeek tested its prototype models in the Arena months before its R1 model gained attention in Western media.[5] Other notable pre-release models include OpenAI's GPT-5 under the codename "summit" and Google DeepMind's Gemini 2.5 Flash Image (an image-generation and editing model) under the codename "Nano Banana".[6][7]
Research has identified specific limitations in Arena's methodology.[8][9]
History
Chatbot Arena was released on April 24, 2023.[10]
In June 2024, Chatbot Arena added image support.[11]
In September 2024, Chatbot Arena moved to its own dedicated domain name, lmarena.ai (or LMArena).[12]
In April 2025, Meta released Llama 4. Llama 4 Maverick beat GPT-4o and Gemini 2.0 Flash on LMArena, but the version of Maverick on LMArena unfairly differed from the publicly available version. LMArena updated their policies in response.[13]
In April 2025, LMArena incorporated as an independent company.[14] That May, LMArena raised $100 million in a seed funding round, valuing the company at $600 million.[15] Participants in the seed funding round included Andreessen Horowitz, UC Investments, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Felicis Ventures, and Kleiner Perkins.[15]
On January 6, 2026, LMArena announced the closing of a $150 million Series A funding round, bringing the company’s post-money valuation to approximately $1.7 billion. The round was led by Felicis and UC Investments (University of California), with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, The House Fund, LDVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Laude Ventures.[16]
In January 2026, LMArena added video support.[17]
On January 28, 2026, LMArena rebranded to "Arena".[18]
References
- ↑ Hart, Robert (July 18, 2024). "What AI Is The Best? Chatbot Arena Relies On Millions Of Human Votes". https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2024/07/18/what-ai-is-the-best-chatbot-arena-relies-on-millions-of-human-votes/.
- ↑ Kruppa, Miles (December 5, 2024). "The UC Berkeley Project That Is the AI Industry's Obsession". https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/the-uc-berkeley-project-that-is-the-ai-industrys-obsession-bc68b3e3.
- ↑ Nuñez, Michael (November 15, 2024). "Google Gemini unexpectedly surges to No. 1, over OpenAI, but benchmarks don't tell the whole story". https://venturebeat.com/ai/google-gemini-unexpectedly-surges-to-no-1-over-openai-but-benchmarks-dont-tell-the-whole-story/.
- ↑ Edwards, Benj (March 27, 2024). ""The king is dead"—Claude 3 surpasses GPT-4 on Chatbot Arena for the first time". https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/03/the-king-is-dead-claude-3-surpasses-gpt-4-on-chatbot-arena-for-the-first-time/.
- ↑ Metz, Rachel (February 18, 2025). "Before DeepSeek Blew Up, Chatbot Arena Announced Its Arrival". https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-18/before-deepseek-blew-up-one-website-announced-its-arrival?embedded-checkout=true.
- ↑ Ziff, Maxwell (Aug 26, 2025). "Google Gemini's AI image model gets a 'bananas' upgrade". https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/26/google-geminis-ai-image-model-gets-a-bananas-upgrade/.
- ↑ Langley, Hugh (Aug 19, 2025). "Is Google behind a mysterious new AI image generator? These bananas might confirm it". https://www.businessinsider.com/bananas-google-viral-ai-model-2025-8.
- ↑ Stokel-Walker, Chris (February 6, 2025). "Hundreds of rigged votes can skew AI model rankings on Chatbot Arena, study finds". https://www.fastcompany.com/91273226/rigged-votes-ai-model-rankings-chatbot-arena.
- ↑ Wiggers, Kyle (September 5, 2024). "The AI industry is obsessed with Chatbot Arena, but it might not be the best benchmark". https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/05/the-ai-industry-is-obsessed-with-chatbot-arena-but-it-might-not-be-the-best-benchmark/.
- ↑ "Chatbot Arena" (in en). 2023-05-04. https://arena.ai/blog/arena/.
- ↑ "The Multimodal Arena is Here!". June 27, 2024. https://arena.ai/blog/multimodal/.
- ↑ arena.ai [@arena] (20 September 2024). "We are happy to announce a new site for Chatbot Arena!". https://twitter.com/arena/status/1837233036624286126.
- ↑ Robison, Kylie (April 8, 2025). "Meta got caught gaming AI benchmarks". https://www.theverge.com/meta/645012/meta-llama-4-maverick-benchmarks-gaming.
- ↑ LMArena (17 April 2025). "LMArena is Growing to Support our Community Platform | LM Arena". https://blog.lmarena.ai/blog/2025/new-beta/.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Wiggers, Kyle (2025-05-21). "LM Arena, the organization behind popular AI leaderboards, lands $100M" (in en-US). https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/21/lm-arena-the-organization-behind-popular-ai-leaderboards-lands-100m/.
- ↑ Wiggers, Kyle (2025-05-21). "LM Arena, the organization behind popular AI leaderboards, lands $100M" (in en-US). https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/21/lm-arena-the-organization-behind-popular-ai-leaderboards-lands-100m/.
- ↑ "Video Arena Is Live on Web". January 21, 2026. https://arena.ai/blog/video-arena/.
- ↑ "LMArena is now Arena". January 28, 2026. https://arena.ai/blog/lmarena-is-now-arena/.
External links
Template:Generative AI chatbots
