Paper Instruments launches Ultramarine 1 Flash, an open model for office work it says costs about 13 cents a task
Paper Instruments released Ultramarine 1 Flash on October 14, an agent model for professional work in finance, law, consulting and operations, built by further training the open GLM-5.3 Flash model. On the company's internal benchmark, whose tasks include delivering finished Excel, PowerPoint and Word files and working inside live business systems like ERP and MES, it scored 59.3 at $0.13 per task, ahead of Claude Fable 5 (57.8 at $8.19) and within three points of Claude Opus 5.5 and GPT-6 Sol. The API is live now and model weights are listed as coming soon; the headline cost comparison comes from Paper Instruments' own testing.
What it means for manufacturers and fabricators
The price of an AI agent doing a whole desk task, like building a spreadsheet or updating records in your ERP, keeps dropping toward pennies. That makes handing routine paperwork to agents cheaper every month, and once the weights are out, a model like this could run on your own servers so job data never leaves the building.
Related guide: How to Automate Your Business with AI: A Step-by-Step Guide for Manufacturers