AI Doubling Rate
The length of tasks (measured by how long they take human professionals) that generalist frontier model agents can complete autonomously with 50% reliability has been doubling approximately every 7 months for the last 6 years. The shaded region represents 95% CI calculated by hierarchical bootstrap over task families, tasks, and task attempts.
Certainly! Here's a rewritten one-page summary tailored for a non-technical audience—such as a technology strategy planning committee—with a focus on clarity, implications, and strategic relevance:
AI’s Ability to Handle Long Tasks: What You Need to Know
Summary of the March 2025 METR Report
Why This Matters
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more advanced, it’s not just about answering trivia questions or writing short emails anymore. A key question now is: Can AI complete long, complex tasks the way humans can—like writing software, planning events, or conducting research?
The METR team has developed a new, easy-to-understand way to measure this:
How long a task (in human time) can today’s AI complete successfully?
What Did They Measure?
- METR looked at 170 real-world tasks like fixing software bugs, writing reports, or planning multi-step actions.
- Each task was rated by how long it typically takes a skilled human to do it—from just a few minutes to several hours.
- Then they tested how well top AI systems performed those same tasks.
What They Found
- Today’s best AI systems (like OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s) can reliably complete tasks that take up to about an hour of human effort.
- For very short tasks (under 5 minutes), AI is nearly perfect.
- But as tasks get longer and more complex—especially past 4 hours—AI still struggles.
- Most importantly: the ability of AI to complete longer tasks is doubling roughly every 7 months.
Why This Trend Is Big News
If the current pace continues:
- In 2–3 years, AI may handle tasks that take a human a full week or more.
- In 5 years, it may independently manage projects that currently take a team of people a month.
This means AI could soon:
- Write complete software products
- Research and draft business strategies
- Conduct customer support or internal reporting workflows end-to-end
⚠️ Things to Keep in Mind
- A 50% success rate isn’t perfect. AI may still make mistakes or need supervision.
- These results are from test environments—not always real-world conditions.
- Longer-term planning and error handling are still hard for AI.
What This Means for Our Strategy
- Plan Ahead: AI systems may soon be capable of completing longer tasks with little oversight.
- Pilot Projects: Start testing where AI might assist or automate longer workflows.
- Talent Planning: Expect changes in the types of roles that will benefit from human–AI collaboration.
- Risk Management: Use these benchmarks to guide safe and responsible AI adoption.
Bottom Line
AI is no longer just a tool for small jobs. It’s growing fast—and by understanding how long and complex a task it can handle today, we can better prepare for the jobs it will do tomorrow.