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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AI benchmarks & capabilities
Updated Oct. 15, 2026
AI benchmarks & capabilities

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.

How well can AI play Slay the Spire?
Report
Oct. 14, 2026
How well can AI play Slay the Spire?

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

Can AI spot mistakes in IKEA assembly?
Report
Sep. 23, 2026
Can AI spot mistakes in IKEA 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

GPT-6 Astra leads on math benchmarks, but not on software engineering
Data Insight
Sep. 16, 2026
GPT-6 Astra leads on math benchmarks, but not on software engineering

OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra tops the Epoch Capabilities Index (ECI) with a score of 166, ahead of Claude Fable 5.1 at 164 and GPT-5.6 Sol at 162. Its Math-ECI of 170 sets a new record, but on software engineering benchmarks its SWE-ECI of 164 still lags behind Fable 5.1's 167.

By Alexander Barry and Jaeho Lee

The ECI frontier has advanced by 14 points per year since the introduction of reasoning models
Data Insight
Sep. 1, 2026
The ECI frontier has advanced by 14 points per year since the introduction of reasoning models

By Alexander Barry