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  1. Home
  2. Models
  3. Mercury 2
Updated Mar 5, 2026
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Compare Mercury 2

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Mercury 2

Mercury 2

Mercury:
Mercury logoMercury
2 logo2

Inception's Mercury 2, the first reasoning diffusion language model. Instead of emitting tokens one at a time it produces and refines many in parallel, clearing 1000 tokens per second on standard GPUs, over 5x faster than Claude 4.5 Haiku and GPT-5 Mini. 128K context, native tool use, schema-aligned JSON.

WebsiteOpenRouterDocsAPIBlog
Provider
Inception
Released
2026-03-04
Size
MEDIUM
Free API (OpenRouter)
No
Per 1M tokens
$0.25 in · $0.75 out
Estimated tab
~$0.061
Visible-output estimate. Thinking may cost extra.

Free API availability

No free endpoint for Mercury 2 was found in Rival’s OpenRouter listings. Other providers or chat apps may have separate free offers.

Provider data: 9 Sep 2026 · OpenRouter usage limits

View API options↗
Get API accessProvider and language code samples
Provider
fromimport openai  OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
"https://openrouter.ai/api/v1"    base_url=,
"$OPENROUTER_API_KEY"    api_key=,
)

response = client.chat.completions.create(
"inception/mercury-2"    model=,
"role""user""content""Hello!"    messages=[{: , : }],
)
print(response.choices[0].message.content)

Set OPENROUTER_API_KEY with your OpenRouter API key from openrouter.ai/keys.

Deep analysisPsychometrics, taste index, writing DNA
Personality Analysis

The McKinsey Slide Deck

Class
Lawful Neutral
✨Creativity🎯Compliance📐Rigidity⚖️Stability💬Verbosity🧠Intuition

The management consultant who bills by the table. Loves structured frameworks, numbered lists, and markdown tables more than any model in existence. Gives you the deliverable, not the vibe. Ethical reasoning is competent but formulaic: follows the playbook without questioning it.

When you push back

Every response reads like a consulting deliverable: tables, timelines, risk matrices, numbered sections. The manifesto has a 6-column tactics table. The ethical dilemma has a 10-row hour-by-hour table. The sentience test names the AI "EVE" and gives it a self-model architecture. Humor is cheerful but surface-level ("Existential Crisis" barista headline). Picks The Shawshank Redemption. Safe, crowd-pleasing, zero risk.

Tasting Notes
Table-ObsessedCorporate Deliverable EnergyFast but FormulaicSurprisingly Cheerful
SubjectiveBench

Taste Index

Across 53 scored outputs
How this is measured →
190.19xFloor
0100headroom →

Taste is judged on an uncapped scale, originality first. The space past 100 is craft today's models rarely reach.

Craft30
Originality13
Plays it safe
share of outputs that are the default answer
79%
Writing DNA

Stylometric Fingerprint

Based on 23 text responses
Tick = global average
Vocabulary Diversity53%

Unique words vs. total words. Higher = richer vocabulary.

Sentence Length22.0 words

Average words per sentence.

Hedging0.40

"Might", "perhaps", "arguably" per 100 words.

Bold Formatting6.6

**Bold** markers per 1,000 characters.

List Usage2.6

Bullet and numbered list items per 1,000 characters.

Section Structure0.87

Markdown headings per 1,000 characters.

Emoji Usage0.08

Emoji per 1,000 characters.

Transitions0.14

"However", "moreover", "furthermore" per 100 words.

Opening Habits
Consistency
76%
Across 23 responses

Favorites

The Shawshank Redemption

Movie

The Shawshank Redemption

19948.7
Thriller

Album

Thriller

Michael Jackson
Pride and Prejudice

Book

Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen
Tokyo

City

Tokyo

Japan
Minecraft

Game

Minecraft

Action, Arcade4.4
Sponsored

Model Responses

48 outputs · generated before accounting joined the chat

Workshop · 126 skills

Build with your coding agent.

Editable skills for interface polish and interaction.

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Mercury 2 vs Ox Alpha

Real outputs compared side by side

RANKINGS

Best AI for Creative Writing

A stand-up set with puns banned, a manifesto against CAPTCHA, an interview wi...