Introducing the New Auto and Auto Code Routers

OpenRouter launched a rebuilt Auto Router on a new technical foundation that it says outperforms the previous version by up to 4× on benchmarks, with a routing step 3× faster at p90 (0.65s vs 1.96s), alongside a new coding-specialized Auto Code router (openrouter/auto-code) that scores in line with Claude Opus 5.5 across five benchmarks while costing 74% less per task. The new routers weigh eleven factors per request combined with live pricing, provider health, and cache status, and work within governance policies such as guardrails, zero data retention, provider restrictions, allowed model lists, and BYOK keys. The slug openrouter/auto is unchanged, and the cost_tier, allowed_models, and excluded_models settings still work.