# Multi-provider model routing with same-model failover

> A model can now be served by several ranked provider routes. On overload, runs move the same model to its next route before switching models.

Sep 8, 2026. Topics: Models, Platform. https://www.generalinput.com/changelog/2026-09-08-model-route-failover

Model routing now lives in one engine, and a model can be served by more than one route. Every chat model in the catalog has its native provider plus routes through Vercel AI Gateway and OpenRouter. When a provider is overloaded, a run first moves the same model to its next untried route, and only then falls back to a different model, so a provider incident doesn't have to change which model is doing your work.

### How it works

- **Ranked routes.** Native lab APIs (Anthropic, Vertex, OpenAI, xAI, Fireworks) first, then Vercel AI Gateway, then OpenRouter.
- **Route hops are free.** A run tracks the routes and the models it has tried separately, so switching routes doesn't use up a model fallback.
- **Caching follows the route.** Each route declares how it handles prompt-cache breakpoints, reasoning effort, and session affinity, so a Claude request through a gateway keeps its cache discounts.
- **Embeddings too.** Embedding requests use the same routes, and a route returning vectors of the wrong size is rejected so stored vectors stay comparable.

### How we verified it

Live suites run every route of every model at every effort level, plus streaming with tools, vision, and cache reads. They caught a provider alias that had started returning errors in production, which is now pinned to its dated version.

### Also shipped

- Muse Spark 1.3, the first model served only through a gateway.