Claude now does 26% of the work on new AI models at Anthropic

Anthropic's AI model Claude now independently performs about 26% of the work needed to develop new AI models, the company reported Thursday, marking a significant step toward automating research tasks. Claude's share of research and development work rose from 0% in February to 26% in August 2026, and it participates in some capacity in nearly 90% of such tasks. The model still operates under human supervision with general instructions from researchers. Anthropic uses these metrics to track progress toward recursive AI improvement, where systems increasingly develop advanced versions of themselves. The company runs about 30,000 AI agents for research and engineering and has urged other developers to publish similar data.