In its November 5 evaluation, METR found that the rate at which Anthropic’s models made progress on well-defined tasks in October 2026 may have been roughly twice as fast as during the period from March 2024 to October 2025. METR judged that AI assistance may explain most of the recent acceleration, but Anthropic withheld much of the evidence supporting this conclusion. If progress continues at the measured pace for six months, benchmark scores could make roughly a year’s worth of progress. Achieving superintelligence within this timeframe would require these advances to extend to open-ended research and help subsequent models accelerate development further. The Associated Press reported that Anthropic co-founder Sam McCandlish defended the redactions on commercial and security grounds.