How fast is AI’s research taste improving?
We find that the experimental research taste of frontier models has doubled every ~3 months since December 2025. The best model, Opus 5.5, now exceeds our expert human baseline. Our human experts are experienced researchers, but most haven’t worked at a frontier lab. Why measure research taste? In the AI Futures Model, it largely determines how quickly artificial superintelligence is reached once coding is fully automated.
