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AI models' ability to complete real, economically valuable freelance projects end-to-end more than quadrupled in under eight months, rising from 2.5% success in October 2025 to 16.1% in July 2026.

The Remote Labor Index shows frontier AI success on real freelance projects jumping from 2.5% to 16.1% in under a year, with Fable 5 leading GPT-5.5 and Opus 4.8. ✦ AI generated

CAIS and Scale researchers · Import AI · 2026-07-06 · original ↗

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In a July update, the authors publish results from evaluating three recent frontier models - GPT-5.5, Opus 4.8, and Fable 5, which get 6.3%, 8.3%, and 16.1% respectively. "The frontier has more than quadrupled in under eight months, a concrete signal of how quickly economically capable AI agents are advancing," they write.

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▦ Center for AI Safety ✳ Remote Labor Index

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AI systems' ability to complete end-to-end online freelance work success has more than quadrupled in under eight months, from 2.5% at the Remote Labor Index's October 2025 launch to 16.1% by July 2026.Center for AI Safety / Scale researchers · Import AI · conf 90%

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supports → The most important evolution in AI over the past year is the shift from conversational chat to agentic systems that can autonomously perform hours of human work.Author · Simon Willison's Weblog supports → The most important shift in AI tool usage over the past year has been from conversational chat interfaces to agentic systems that can perform many hours of human work autonomously.Author · Simon Willison's Weblog supports → AI systems are expanding their economically relevant capabilities faster than humans are expanding their comparative advantages relative to AI, so person-light, AI-heavy organizations will increasingly out-compete unaugmented humans and take over parts of the economy.Jack Clark · Import AI