Anthropic predicts Claude will surpass human researchers in nine months

Anthropic believes Claude will surpass human researchers within nine months. The company is no longer talking about AI as a research assistant. It is talking about AI as the one running the lab. The supporting data is striking. On September 17, 2026, Anthropic disclosed that its Claude models now lead 26% of its internal AI research and development work. In February 2026, that figure was under 1%. What Anthropic actually measured Anthropic grades AI involvement in research on a scale of automation levels. The level that matters here is AL4, which the company describes as the stage where the AI leads the work. By that measure, Claude led 26% of Anthropic’s R&D efforts as of the September disclosure. More than 90% of the R&D tasks Anthropic measured involved AI collaboration at AL3 or higher as of August 2026. Anthropic reported no fully autonomous work, which it classifies as AL5. Approximately 30,000 AI agents were active on Anthropic’s internal platform as of August 2026. Anthropic projects that Claude could lead around 80% of its internal AI R&D at the AL4 level by the end of 2026, provided the current trend continues. The experiments behind the confidence In April 20...