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METR's review of Anthropic's R&D acceleration shows an independent audit is not the same as public evidence

METR spent about 11 weeks assessing Anthropic, with permission to view some internal material, and concluded that Anthropic is improving its models at roughly twice its earlier pace. That conclusion could be published. But METR says a majority of the evidence it found most informative was redacted by Anthropic. Readers can review the published methods, results and robustness checks, but that is not the same as being able to recompute them independently; for the rest, it comes down to how far you trust the evaluator's judgment.

METRAnthropic
Long readEditorial8 min read

METR high-access review estimates Anthropic model progress roughly doubled, mostly from AI-assisted R&D

Independent evaluator METR published on November 5 a high-access review it ran from August 12 to October 29, 2026. Staff used Anthropic-provided systems to inspect internal R&D data; the report stresses this was not employee-style full access. Most METR staff on the project believe that as of October 2026, Anthropic is likely improving model capabilities on well-specified tasks at about twice the March 2024–October 2025 pace, with high uncertainty (perhaps nearer 1.3x or 3x). They say most of that speed-up is likely from heavy use of AI in R&D, while other factors also mattered in late 2025. Internal AECI growth since October 2025 is about 1.9x the earlier rate (95% CI 1.5–2.8x). Anthropic redacted much key evidence; METR says the public must lean more on its judgment.

Why it matters An independent high-access check of whether AI is speeding frontier lab R&D—central to loss-of-control risk debates.

METRAnthropic
Research