AI Glossary

Reasoning model

A model trained to work through a problem in steps before it answers, spending more test-time compute on problems such as math, coding and analysis. Reinforcement learning is one way such models are trained.

See also

  • Chain of thought

    The step-by-step reasoning a model writes out before its final answer.

  • Test-time compute

    Computation a model spends while answering rather than during training, for example reasoning at length, sampling several answers or searching among them.

  • Reinforcement learning

    Training in which a system learns by trial and error: it takes actions in an environment, receives rewards or penalties, and adjusts to earn more reward over time.

Source: DeepSeek-AI, DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learning (2025) (opens in a new tab)

Cite this term.

CC BY 4.0, attribution required.

This term

Orbyt Labs, Reasoning model (AI Glossary), Oct 18, 2026. https://www.orbytlabs.ai/orbyt-collective/glossary/reasoning-model

The dataset (JSON)

Orbyt Labs Glossaries (Oct 19, 2026), https://www.orbytlabs.ai/glossary#dataset

Last updated .