METR finds Anthropic is improving its models about twice as fast as before

The independent evaluator METR says Anthropic is improving its AI models about twice as fast as it did between early 2024 and late 2025. METR estimates that most of the speed-up comes from AI tools helping Anthropic's own staff with coding and experiments. More training compute is not the main driver, it says. METR found no clear bottleneck that would stop further acceleration within a year.

The assessment covered August to October 2026. Its central estimate is a speed-up of about one point nine times, with a wide range of uncertainty. Anthropic withheld most of the evidence METR found most useful, saying it could help competitors. METR also notes that its benchmark measure may not match real-world impact, and that the earlier rate may have been unusually slow. Staff reported large personal productivity gains, but those figures are self-reported.