AI capabilities

AI systems can now write code, pass professional exams, and assist with scientific research, and their capabilities are improving remarkably fast. But measuring exactly what AI can and cannot do is genuinely difficult, with benchmarks struggling to keep pace and real-world performance often diverging from test scores. Epoch tracks AI capabilities across tasks and benchmarks, examining how fast progress is happening, how predictable it is, and what it reveals about where the technology is heading.

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Capabilities & benchmarking
Updated Nov. 4, 2026
Capabilities & benchmarking

Our hub for benchmark results, featuring the performance of leading AI models on challenging tasks. It includes results from benchmarks administered internally by Epoch AI as well as data collected from external sources. Explore trends in AI capabilities across time, by benchmark, or by model.

AI can turn security fixes into working exploits before users receive an update
Report
Oct. 29, 2026
AI can turn security fixes into working exploits before users receive an update

GLM 5.3 turned published-but-unshipped Firefox security fixes into working one-click exploits for six releases, at roughly $1,000 each.

By Aiden Ament, Yafah Edelman, Alexander Barry, Timothée Chauvin, Lee Bousfield, and Jaeho Lee

Open-weight models trail closed models in cyber capabilities by 6–7 months
Data Insight
Oct. 16, 2026
Open-weight models trail closed models in cyber capabilities by 6–7 months

Z.ai’s GLM-5.3 is the top open-weight model on Epoch’s Cyber ECI, scoring where the closed-weight frontier stood 6–7 months earlier.

By Jaeho Lee and Alexander Barry

AI systems are improving rapidly at Slay the Spire and its sequel
Report
Oct. 14, 2026
AI systems are improving rapidly at Slay the Spire and its sequel

Months ago, frontier models could barely beat Slay the Spire. Now they win 90%+ at the easiest setting and up to 20% at the hardest. Results from Epoch AI’s new SpireClimb benchmark.

By Benjamin Ou and Simon Chen

Can AI automate Epoch?
Report
Oct. 8, 2026
Can AI automate Epoch?

Frontier models can handle well-defined tasks reliably, but fail in the more open-ended aspects that prevent full work automation. Explore Epoch AI's Automation Reports: realistic, open-ended tasks taken directly from our work, manually graded by our own standards.

By Kelly Hong and Greg Burnham

US adults are no more likely to face cyber incidents than when Claude Fable 5 launched
Data Insight
Oct. 7, 2026
US adults are no more likely to face cyber incidents than when Claude Fable 5 launched

June and September polls from Epoch AI/Ipsos show no detectable increase in the share of US adults experiencing cyber incidents

By Caroline Falkman Olsson and Yafah Edelman

EBR-bench update
Report
Oct. 7, 2026
EBR-bench update

Updates on EBR-bench, Epoch AI’s benchmark that tests models’ ability to learn from experience. GPT-6 Astra hit a perfect score on over half its EBR-bench attempts by exploiting one overpowered card, which we now ban. Plus multi-agent scaffold results.

By Benjamin Ou and Avery Yen

Can AI automate AI R&D yet?
Report
Oct. 7, 2026
Can AI automate AI R&D yet?

Early evidence from InnovationEval: No

By David Owen

AI has improved significantly at reasoning about IKEA furniture assembly
Report
Sep. 23, 2026
AI has improved significantly at reasoning about IKEA furniture assembly

AI model scores on Epoch AI's IKEA furniture assembly benchmark jumped from 28% to 80% in 10 months, with open-weight models trailing closed-weight models by about 7 months. Epoch AI's test of visual and spatial reasoning across 60 photos from three furniture builds.

By Aiden Ament and Greg Burnham

The plunging price of thought
Report
Sep. 22, 2026
The plunging price of thought

Epoch AI measures how fast the cost of a given level of AI performance is falling across five benchmarks covering math, science and games of skill: about 47% per quarter, or 13x per year, since 2023, faster than electricity, compute, batteries or DNA sequencing ever fell.

By Luke Emberson and David Roodman