Anthropic analyzes 207,000 research conversations and projects that, once existing capabilities spread, research output on a fixed budget reaches about 1.96 times in computer science and about 1.35 times in the arts.

Concept illustration: a black band across the top has an orange-red starburst and the lettering ANTHROPIC at its right, above two side-by-side panels, each with a laptop whose screen shows a speech bubble, a tied sack with coins at its mouth and a stack of paper, standing left to right on a horizontal line. The left panel, lettered COMPUTER SCIENCE below the line, has the taller stack, with a thick brick-red layer on white sheets and one white sheet on top; the right panel, lettered ARTS, has a shorter stack, with a thin grey-brown layer on white sheets and one white sheet on top. Printed on the image: about 1.96x computer science output, fixed budget, scenario.

This is a scenario projection of research output on a fixed research budget, not observed output, and it is a different thing from METR's twofold figure for model capability. A second scenario assumes AI completes every non-physical step: computer science and statistics reach about 15 to 16 times, while biology and chemistry reach only 3 to 4 times, because those fields have physical steps. The authors state that these are illustrative scenarios, not forecasts, and the 16-times ceiling comes from cost assumptions the authors set. The publisher also sells the product being measured (Anthropic, 2026-11-05). How we checked →

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This item ran in the brief of Nov 6, 2026, alongside 17 other items. How we checked it, the quote checks and what was still missing that day are on that issue's How we checked page.

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SecondSource (2026). "Anthropic analyzes 207,000 research conversations and projects that, once existing capabilities spread, research output on a fixed budget reaches about 1.96 times in computer science and about 1.35 times in the arts.." https://secondsource.io/en/research/2026-11-06-1/. Accessed access date.